Telecom Industry News

Cox rises to the top of the cable Ethernet heap

Sean Buckley — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 11:12:15 -0500

While cable MSOs are establishing themselves as a credible business services threat, it's clear that when it comes to Ethernet services Cox Business has separated itself from the pack.

Proof of its leadership came recently when Cox once again was featured on Vertical Systems Group's U.S. Business Ethernet Leaderboard, trailing two RBOCs (AT&T and Verizon) and one competitive provider (tw telecom). VSG's Rick Malone argues that what has set Cox apart from other cable MSOs offering Ethernet services is that they have complemented their Direct Internet Access (DIA) over Ethernet service with a set of Ethernet-based private line services.

Cox attributes the success of its Ethernet service set with vertical market business segments (education, government and healthcare) to a delivery approach that combines its local presence with its sizable Hybrid Fiber Coax (HFC) and fiber network footprint.

For more:
- see this Cable Digital News article

BT Wholesale expands its ADSL2+ service reach

Sean Buckley — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 10:28:39 -0500

BT may be keen on expanding its Fiber to the X ambitions, but with over 730 of its U.K. exchanges carrying its 21CN Wholesale Broadband Connect (WBC) ADSL2+ product, it's clear that the telco is finding plenty to like about its existing copper network.

Offering 24 Mbps downlink speeds, BT says it is ahead of its deployment schedule for WBC. To date, over 550,000 subscribers are using the service, 'with more than 20,000 to 30,000 users being added each week.' By the end of March, BT forecasts that WBC services will be available to approximately 14 million UK users and an estimated 20 million subscribers by the beginning of 2011.

BT's service is far from unique, however. Competitors such as Be Broadband already have a sizeable lead over the incumbent. Since launching its ADSL2+-based 24 Mbps service in 2005, Be's service now is available to 70 percent of U.K. homes, for example.

For more:
- ISPreview has this article

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FierceTelecom Leaders: Kevin DeNuccio, President and CEO of MetaSwitch

Sean Buckley — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 06:57:06 -0500

After making the former Redback (now Ericsson) and Cisco's service provider group household names in the telecom industry, Kevin DeNuccio, formally joined next-gen voice switching vendor MetaSwitch as the company's president and CEO last week. After serving on the company's board since 2008, DeNuccio takes over the reins from John Lazar, who became MetaSwitch's board chairman. We caught up with DeNuccio to talk about his first few days on the job and how he will expand the company's well-entrenched customer and product base.

FierceTelecom: You've headed up a number of ventures from early startup mode to become much bigger companies with major revenues. As a board member since last December, what motivated you to finally join MetaSwitch's team?
DeNuccio: What I think is happening in the market. I feel that the movement to the mobile Internet and the all IP network, what social networking will do to that environment along with smart phones along with IP and voice together make Metaswitch a pretty attractive company because the engineering depth that we have already. Based on what I see happening in the market, it makes the company uniquely positioned to capitalize on most of those trend.

From a competitive standpoint, the market is in a bit of turmoil consolidating under a few big vendors, including Ericsson, Cisco and Huawei each with their own slant on the world. Most of the other vendors are struggling to figure out how to offset a series of declining revenue streams and making it through the transition I think is going to be very challenging. I think the reality of a Nortel situation is what many of them might face because it's such a difficult job to make it through these types of transitions.

When I look at the trends, I think the market needs someone to emerge as an innovator to drive the convergence of all these things. This company is well positioned to do that because it has a financial foundation that's unique in the industry: 25 years of growth and profitability and a broad base of customers. The customer base is not concentrated with any one or two tier ones that would make us subsequent to the ups and downs that the industry really sees. I feel like we're on the cusp of the ability to accelerate our growth as the recession subsides. So as we looked at where the company needed to go John and I forged a great relationship and we came to the same conclusion to add me to the company and not loose John--we could be a powerful force in expanding the strategy globally.

FierceTelecom: What are the key components of this new opportunity you're are laying out to tackle these emerging opportunities?
DeNuccio: Given my background at Cisco and Redback, one of the things I cherished the most was deep IP engineering expertise. That's very rare at large scale. I think what we have is a very unique IP house from an engineering capability and product set. I think marrying that to the leadership that we created with VoIP and Class 5 replacement, I think the engineering power will be great to capitalize on.

Click here for part II of the interview

Analysts expect Telmex Internacional to report strong Q4

Sean Buckley — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 06:47:27 -0500

When Carlos Slim's Telmex Internacional (Telint) announces its Q4 09 results on Thursday, a group of analysts polled by Reuters think the provider will report a 48 percent year-over-year increase in net profit of $142 million.

Analysts also expect the service provider to report quarterly earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) to be up 47 percent. A key contributor to that figure is ongoing growth in its Brazilian market.

"We believe that in the fourth quarter and coming quarters, Telmex Internacional will report the most solid results in the Latam telecom industry," BBVA analyst Andres Coello said in a report.

But Slim is not resting on his laurels. After years of enjoying a comfortable lead in Mexico and other Latin American countries, Slim hatched a $21 billion plan last month to combine his wireline units (Telmex and Telmex Internacional) with his America Movil property to respond to growing competition from aggressive carriers including Spain's Telefonica.

For more:
- Reuters has this article

AT&T, Southeast wireline unions strike tentative agreement

Sean Buckley — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 22:53:31 -0500

After failing to seal the deal in December with union wireline workers in its Southeast region, AT&T has gone back to the negotiation table and reached a new tentative agreement with Communications Workers of America (CWA) District 3.

The proposed three-year contract, which will be given to the district's membership for a vote this week, encompasses about 30,000 wireline workers throughout the states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.

Similar to the previous agreement, this proposed contract will provide pay and pension band increases during every year of the agreement. What's different about the latest agreement is that this one includes healthcare premiums for the second year of the agreement versus a health reimbursement account (HRA), and a reward program AT&T says is "keyed to the company's financial performance paid in cash rather than being paid into the HRA."

To date, AT&T has reached either tentative or ratified agreements with six of seven bargaining units that represent its wireline worker base. However, AT&T has yet to reach an agreement with CWA District 1-the company's East Region.

For more:
- see the release here

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Windstream completes acquisition of NuVox

Sean Buckley — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:11:24 -0500

Windstream just added another arrow to its respective service quiver as it completes its acquisition of privately-held CLEC NuVox for $647 million.

Following earlier acquisitions of some smaller independent ILECs last year--a list that includes D&E Communications, Lexcom and Iowa Telecommunications--NuVox was the first acquisition of a CLEC that Windstream has made in its ongoing M&A fest.

With the acquisition of NuVox complete, Windstream gains about 90,000 business customers in what it calls "complementary markets" in 16 Southeast and Midwest states, giving the ILEC greater reach into the burgeoning SMB market segment.

"NuVox is a great strategic fit for Windstream. The NuVox markets are contiguous to our properties, and the transaction bolsters our strategy to focus more on the business customer," said Jeff Gardner, Windstream president and CEO in a release.

But as the new year progresses, speculation will likely linger around when Windstream will make an even bigger purchase of either another large CLEC or perhaps a fellow tier 2 ILEC such as Consolidated Communications or maybe the beleagured FairPoint.

For more:
- see the release here

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FairPoint lays out its financial restructuring plan

Sean Buckley — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:10:21 -0500

FairPoint hopes that it will be able to see some light at the end of its bankruptcy tunnel, but when it does emerge much of the ILEC's ownership will be in the hands of the banks that currently hold major portions of its debt.

Under the reorganization plan, FairPoint hopes to eliminate $1.8 billion in debt, continue to expand broadband availability in its New England territory and reduce labor costs. A key concern amongst Northern New England consumers will be its ability to stick to its $100 million broadband build-out commitment.

But before FairPoint can proceed with its plan, the ILEC needs buy in from its creditors, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York and state regulatory approvals.

During a conference call yesterday morning, David Hauser, FairPoint's CEO and chairman, said that unsecured creditors will get approximately 17 cents on the dollar mostly in stock.

Last week, FairPoint carved out a deal with local telephone unions to see where they could find new cost savings with annual raises from 2011 to 2013.

For more:
- New Hampshire Union Leader has this article

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ABI Research: New applications drive fiber-based broadband

Sean Buckley — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 11:36:56 -0500

Consumers' ongoing adoption of file sharing, IPTV and online gaming applications is driving the need for more fiber-based broadband access, according to a new report by ABI Research. By the end of 2014, there will be 501 million broadband subscribers. Included in that figure, 106 million will connect via a fiber-based connection.

In the overall broadband race, DSL continues to be the dominant wireline broadband format with 65 percent of the worldwide broadband consumer market, while cable and fiber broadband command 25 and 11 percent of the overall broadband market, respectively. While there were only 44 million fiber-based subscribers at the end of 2009, ABI said that the amount of fiber broadband subscribers is accelerating with a compound annual growth rate of 20 percent from 2008 to 2014.

"File sharing, music downloads, IPTV, online gaming and video conferencing are all acting to increase the user demand for high speed Internet. The number of fiber broadband subscribers is increasing with growing popularity of these services," comments research associate Khin Sandi Lynn in a release.

For more:
- see the release here

Ericsson names regional heads to executive team

Sean Buckley — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 11:08:01 -0500

Hans Vestberg might have a little more than a month under his belt as Ericsson's President and CEO, but that's not stopping him from continuing to make changes to the company's management team.

This week, Vestberg named Ericsson veterans Mats H. Olsson and Angel Ruiz, who currently oversee the company's China and North America regions, to the company's executive leadership team.

Although both Olsson and Ruiz will continue in their current roles, they are now part of Ericsson's inner executive circle.

Vestberg has wasted no time making his mark on Ericsson's management team since he took over as company CEO last month. Among other key division appointments were Magnus Mandersson to the head of global services and Rima Qureshi as head of CDMA mobile systems, both of whom were also named to Ericsson's Executive Leadership Team.

For more:
- see the release here
- LightReading Europe has this analysis

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BT could open fiber ducts to competitors

Sean Buckley — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 10:28:50 -0500

As it accelerates its FTTX rollout to complete it in time for the 2012 Olympic games, a report has emerged that BT might just open up its underground cabling ducts to competitors.

This move would enable BT's broadband competitors to install their own fiber cables in the ducts, thus eliminating the expense of digging up the streets to install their fibers.

Recent reports in the Financial Times speculated that BT's move could really be a way to avoid the British Conservative Party's plans to force the telco to open its ducts in the event that the political party wins this year's general election. BT's CEO immediately dismissed this idea, adding that the telco not only has agreed to open its ducts but that by doing so it will help enhance the availability of fiber based broadband to more users.

"Although it's unlikely to be the silver bullet to get fibre to every home, open access to all ducts, not just ours, might help BT and others extend coverage and so we would like to see a future government support such a move," Livingston said in a statement.

For more:
- Telegeography outlines BT's move
- Financial Times chronicles political threat here

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KDDI to take a smaller bite out of J:COM

Sean Buckley — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 09:54:44 -0500

After its initial bid to acquire a big piece in Jupiter Telecommunications (J:COM) prompted regulatory inquiries, KDDI is considering buying a smaller stake in the company. Under the new plan, KDDI will purchase less than one-third versus the initial 38 percent piece it had planned to acquire.

At the time that KDDI put its original acquisition plan on the table--one that it believes will enhance its holdings with a large fixed line telephony business and a large fiber network--it was equal to a premium of 44 percent of Jupiter's closing price. Not long after KDDI crafted the original deal, financial regulators were going to levy an $884 million fine on KDDI. Regulators argued that because the deal would immediately establish KDDI as J:COM's largest shareholder, it would be required to make a public tender offer for the shares and get shareholder approval for the deal.

For more:
- Telecompaper has this article

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Qwest reconsiders broadband stimulus

Sean Buckley — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 07:08:12 -0500

A change in rules over how the Rural Utilities Service (RUS) and National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) will dole out the second round of broadband stimulus funding is driving Denver-based RBOC Qwest to consider applying for a grant this time around.

This is a shift for Qwest, who along with its RBOC brethren AT&T and Verizon and cable MSO Comcast, declined to go after the first round of broadband stimulus funding because they thought the rules were too complex.

One of the big issues for Qwest was a rule that would not permit projects to be built within 60 miles of a city or town--even if those areas lacked broadband--making it economically unfeasible to apply for the funding.

Stopping short at saying it's definitely going to apply, Qwest said it's now motivated to conduct economic analysis on whether some broadband network expansions could make more sense under the realigned rules. "The good news is that they seem to have heard us in Washington, D.C.," said Chuck Ward, Qwest's Colorado president in a statement. "It almost gets us able to apply."

For more:
- see this Denver Business Journal article
- TMC also has this article

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Supercomm 2010 has been shelved

Sean Buckley — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 06:28:22 -0500

It appears that the telecom industry's biggest show, Supercomm, is officially headed towards extinction.

In a press release issued today, EXPOCOMM Events said that it would not renew the contract to manage the SUPERCOMM event following careful review with co-owning SUPERCOMM associations, TIA and USTelecom. Both the TIA and USTelecom said they would not produce a SUPERCOMM event at all this year.

An official announcement by show organizer EXPOCOMM appeared this morning following a LightReading article on Friday that broke the news that the show is "being canceled."

Perhaps show organizers created their own problems by deciding last year to reschedule the show suddenly to the fall in order to coincide with the broadband stimulus award timetable. Or maybe show organizers need to, as Carol Wilson opined in a column last fall, create a more focused event that addresses the telecom industry's need for information about emerging technology and regulatory trends.

For more:
- LightReading has this article

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Verizon, CURRENT take guesswork out of the smart grid

Sean Buckley — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 11:30:40 -0500

Seeing an opportunity to unburden utilities from building specialized networks for their smart grid needs, Verizon has launched a joint initiative with electric sensor vendor CURRENT to offer utilities an IP-based smart grid service.

This joint service will enable electric utilities to gain real-time power consumption and analysis communications between electric companies and sensors deployed on their networks. Through the new partnership, Verizon will offer up its suite of necessary wireless and IP network services, managed network and security service and advanced IT security consulting. In tandem with Verizon, CURRENT will provide its intelligence sensors to monitor electric distribution grid performance as well as its OpenGrid EMS and analytical software elements.

One of the benefits for utilities, as described by Bob Heffron, utility market manager for Verizon Business in an interview with LightReading, is that they will be able to better identify where energy is being lost because of a faulty element in the grid. The service effectively empowers the utility to be more proactive about finding elements that might need to be either fixed or replaced before a power failure occurs.

And if an outage does happen, the utility can "be more specific as to where I dispatch a crew so I can fix it much faster," Heffron said.

For more:
- see the release here
- LightReading also has this article

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BCE surpasses forecasts, touts FTTX strategy

Sean Buckley — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 11:06:10 -0500

Buoyed by strong wireless sales, a factor that will likely continue into the next quarter with the introduction of the iPhone, BCE reported that Q4 09 revenue increased 3.9 percent year-on-year to $4.3 billion.

While residential local and access revenues declined by 6.1 percent to $775 million, increased adoption of TV and electronic equipment sales from its acquisition of retailer 'The Source' in BCE's Bell Canada subsidiary helped drive wireline operating revenues up 4.2 percent. Likewise, wireline operating revenue increased 29.3 percent because of higher EBITDA and lower restructuring costs. Bell's operating revenues for 2009 were up 0.2 percent to $10.6 million. At the same time, local and access revenues were down 6.1 percent to $775 million in Q4, a result of ongoing residential and business network access services (NAS) erosion.

A key initiative for Bell Canada's wireline division in 2010 is its three-year Fiber to the X deployment plan. Similar to its U.S. counterpart AT&T, Bell is taking a pronged strategy to FTTX. It will bring Fiber to the Home (FTTH) in all Greenfield urban and suburban housing developments in Ontario and Quebec starting in the second half of this year along with its ongoing Fiber to the Business (FTTB) that it already has underway.

In existing Brownfield areas, Bell will complete its Fiber to the Node (FTTN) roll out in Toronto and Montreal this quarter, offering VDSL2 capabilities to 1.8 million homes. By the end of 2010, Bell said its VDSL2 will be available on 100 percent of its FTTN network with an IPTV offering that will complement its existing Bell TV satellite service. Earlier this week, Bell unveiled the four speed tiers for its 'Fibe' FTTN service.

For more:
- see the release here
- Telegeography also has this analysis

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Motorola deepens FTTH presence with rural telcos

Sean Buckley — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 10:07:30 -0500

With over 1 million BPON and GPON Optical Network Terminals (ONT) shipped as of October 2009, it's safe to say that Motorola is no longer a newcomer in the Fiber to the Home market. One segment that's tuning to Motorola's FTTH channel is the U.S. rural independent ILEC market.

Proof of its growing presence in the rural telco market was on display this week as Oklahoma-based Medicine Park Telephone Company announced that it will deploy Motorola's GPON for its FTTH broadband network in the town's Granite Ridge area--one of the first in OK to get FTTH service. Over their FTTH network, Medicine Park plans to deliver not only high-speed data, but also RF-based video.

Given the challenges of targeting the rural telco opportunities--one that's diverse in terms of size and needs--Motorola is not going it alone. Instead, Motorola has established a distributor relationship with Power & Tel to target rural telco FTTH opportunities.

For more:
- see the release here

Cox, CenturyLink spar over broadband speeds

Sean Buckley — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 07:02:32 -0500

The classic battle between cable MSO and telco broadband saw another skirmish this week. Cox Communications' Las Vegas division filed a suit against local telco CenturyLink over false statements it made about the dedicated speeds of the cable MSO's broadband service and how it prices DSL.

At issue is a TV commercial that CenturyLink began airing in November 2009 that said: "Unlike Cox, it's [CenturyLink's DSL service] consistently fast no matter how many people are online."

Cox shot back in its complaint that CenturyLink's claims were "patently false," adding that "cable and DSL Internet have more than one point in the network where customers' connections are aggregated, or 'shared,' prior to connecting to the Internet." In December, Cox brought its DOCSIS 3.0-based Ultimate Internet offering to Las Vegas, a service that offers 50 Mbps down and 5 Mbps up speeds.

In addition to the network sharing issue, Cox pointed out that CenturyLink's 10 Mbps DSL service ads incorrectly state that the customer only has to pay $29.95 per month, but in actuality the service costs $54.95 per month.

For more:
- Multichannel News has this article

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Juniper answers the core network call

Sean Buckley — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 06:29:09 -0500

Let the core routing upgrade wars begin.

Entering the core routing networking ring is Juniper with a new capability that will enable customers to upgrade their existing T-Series routing gear to support 250 Gbps full duplex slot capacity. Leveraging a new in-house chipset design, Juniper says the upgrade will be able to deliver 4 Tbps of capacity in a half-rack system.

Available for purchase early next year, the proposed upgrade is likely the first attack on Cisco's proposed MSC 120 core router that claims to support 120 Gbps per-slot. It would also surpass core networking platforms from both Alcatel-Lucent and Huawei--who have advertised support for 100 Gbps per-slot capacity.

For more:
- see the release here
- LightReading has this article

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Bell Aliant sees slight Q4 09 decline, plans FTTH expansion

Sean Buckley — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 05:51:45 -0500

Bell Aliant's 2.2 percent revenue decline in Q4 2009 to $2.99 billion illustrates the common theme that no traditional telco can fully escape: that landline local and long-distance voice is a struggling business.

During Q4 09, Bell Aliant's local and long distance revenue declined 4.1 percent and 9.1 percent. At the same time, the service provider saw its Internet business increase 7.2 percent, while IT grew 14.2 percent during the quarter.

While revenues did decline, the service provider saw EBIDTA rise 1 percent to $16 million, while capex spending declined $46 million to $121 million due to a 'streamlined' spending program and the completion of a wireless backhaul network project for Bell Mobility that it began in Q4 08.

One area that Bell Aliant plans on putting a major emphasis on in 2010 is Fiber to the Home, a process it began last September in its Fredericton, New Brunswick market. Set to be launched in specific communities later this year, Bell Aliant's FibreOp service will pass 140,000 homes by the end of this year.

"With this investment we are accelerating and leveraging our natural assets of aerial footprint and low density geography to invest for the future," said Karen Sheriff, President and Chief Executive Officer of Bell Aliant. "We expect to continue to gain efficiencies in our capital programme, and this, in combination with the completion of a significant capital project in 2009, will allow us to advance our fibre network this year without increasing our overall capital spending from 2009 levels."

For more:
- Telegeography has this article

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Cisco surpasses Q2 expectations

Sean Buckley — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 12:01:58 -0500

Cisco's CEO John Chambers believes that a strong Q2 earnings report at the company signifies that there is light at the end of the dark economic turmoil tunnel.

For Cisco, the numbers appear to support Chamber's assertion. During the quarter, Cisco reported revenues of $9.82 billion, an 8 percent increase over the same period last year. The company also saw a 23 percent jump in net profit to $1.85 billion.

In addition, company shares were up four percent as the company forecast revenue growth of 23-26 percent in the current quarter. This surpasses analyst expectations of a 16.5 percent increase.

"We saw very strong, balanced growth from a year-over-year perspective in almost all of the major geographies and market segment categories," he said in a conference call with analysts.

Contributing to the company's Q2 growth was an 11 percent increase in orders from service providers deploying routers and related equipment to support enhanced wireless devices like the iPhone. On a regional front, Cisco reported that it saw a 17 percent increase in U.S. orders, while Japan showed high teens growth and the rest of Asia grew in low double digits.

For more:
- see the release here
- Reuters also has this article

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ACA claims broadband stimulus unfairly favors telcos

Sean Buckley — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 11:30:07 -0500

It appears that the overseers (the RUS and NTIA) of the broadband stimulus act have something against cable companies according to the American Cable Association (ACA). At issue is the set of criteria, which requires applicants to meet a specific number of points on a 100-point scale, for deciding who or who does not get money.

A key criterion is whether the applicant borrowed funds under Title II of the 1936 Rural Electric Act, and it appears that telcos led that charge. Anyone that did borrow the funds under that program got five points so ACA asked NTIA and RUS to reduce the emphasis of that criteria from five to one. Apparently, RUS did not heed ACA's calls and upped the points on that issue from five to eight.

ACA President and CEO Matthew Polka said in a statement that they are "disappointed that NTIA and RUS structurally modified the programs in a way that makes it harder for small cable providers to receive last-mile funding."

It appears that the ACA might be on to something. By ACA's previous count, 83 small to mid-sized cable operators have submitted applications for the first round of the broadband stimulus funding. Out of that group, only one small cable operator ACA member, Pine Telephone Co. got funding in the first round.

For more:
- CED has this article

Comcast's busy week puts its multi-play telecom strategy on display

Dan O'Shea — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 10:52:00 -0500

Cable TV company Comcast is at a pivotal point in its evolution as a multi-play telecom service provider. Its status as a telecom giant that should be mentioned in the same sentence as AT&T and Verizon Communications--call them the new big three carriers--has never been on more apparent display than this week:

- Yesterday, Comcast reported fourth quarter 2009 earnings, touting yet another quarter of solid growth ending a strong 2009. Comcast added 243,000 telephony customers and 247,000 high-speed Internet customers during the last quarter. The telephony figure was something of a disappointment, though perhaps only because we had become used to quarters in which Comcast added at least twice that number of voice accounts. Comcast now has 7.6 million telephony customers, and both AT&T and Verizon are heading quickly downward in that category as Comcast continues to inch upward.

- Comcast and NBC Universal are in front of Congressional committees today in Washington, D.C., taking the first steps to get approval for their programming joint venture that would put Comcast in control of vast content resources. Critics of the deal have been making a lot of noise early on and the regulatory give-and-take will take months, but with old media ownership regulations lifted, it's likely the deal will move forward mostly intact.

- Comcast also is shoring up its resources in what has been referred to as an area of weakness in the past. The company announced this week it will acquire business telecom services provider New Global Telecom. This effort comes after the cable firm's acquisition of Cimco, and with these two deals, Comcast is making it harder for observers to criticize its readiness in the business communications segment. Cox Communications is still leading the cable TV company invasion in this segment, but Comcast is coming on strong.

- Next week, Comcast will begin its transition to a new services brand, Xfinity. Some say it's an attempt by Comcast to distance itself from a legacy of poor cable TV customer service. You could also argue that it's a risky and expensive move at a time after Comcast already has made adequate strides in new service areas under its existing brand name. Yet, it mimics what AT&T and Verizon did with their respective brands, U-verse and FiOS, and acknowledges that the TV-broadband Internet-telephony triumvirate has become a new segment unto its own, and that it is the collective service sector by which future telecom success will be measured.

Comcast's busy week provides it with a mountain of publicity. Some of that publicity may be negative, of course, but a good deal of it will end up showcasing how powerful and far-reaching this multi-play telecom service provider has become.

-Dan

France Telecom's new CEO focuses on restoring worker happiness

Sean Buckley — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 10:51:38 -0500

Stephane Richard will have a lot on his plate when he officially settles into his new role as France Telecom's CEO in March.

At the top of Richard's to-do list will be the daunting task of restoring the faith of his employees, who he said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal have gone through "trauma, suffering and much worse."

Originally Richard was supposed to take over the CEO duties in 2011, but the 32 employee suicides--a factor unions attribute to the former state owned service provider's cost cutting and employee redeployment measures--put pressure on the company's leadership to make a more immediate change. When the board meets later this month, they will approve Richard's appointment to CEO.

"It was necessary to make the change immediately...the crisis called for a coherent and strong reaction," said Richard.

After France Telecom's board of directors decided to split the CEO and Chairman duties between Didier Lombard and Richard, Lombard decided this week to finally resign from the CEO post amidst public pressure. Last week, Richard launched a campaign asking that Lombard step aside so he could get down to the business of addressing the company's issues. Lombard, however, will stay on as board chairman until next January.

For more:
- Wall Street Journal has this article

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France Telecom to reshuffle the management deck
France Telecom's heir apparent wants Lombard to leave
Survey reveals employee discord at France Telecom
France Telecom names Stephane Richard to deputy CEO post
France Telecom - Top Telecom Turkeys of 2009
France Telecom: We'll meet our 2009 goals
Sluggish economy impacts France Telecom's Q3 results
France Telecom sees 24th employee suicide
France Telecom puts restructuring process on hold
Current France Telecom CEO should resign, say political groups

Former Redback exec DeNuccio takes reins at Metaswitch

Sean Buckley — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 09:55:17 -0500

Metaswitch is turning yet another chapter in its evolving playbook by appointing former Redback/Ericsson leader Kevin DeNuccio as its new CEO.

Current CEO John Lazar, who has been promoted to company chairman, said that the latest appointment will help the company compete on a worldwide basis.

"As the economy eases out of recession, Metaswitch is poised to emerge as a significant player with global scope. This is a tremendously exciting prospect--but also a challenge for us as an organization to manage that growth and make the most of the opportunity," said Lazar in release.

DeNuccio is no stranger to MetaSwitch having already served on the company's board as an independent director since December 2008. What he does bring to the table is a knack for transforming companies into major money makers. At Redback Networks, now Ericsson, DeNuccio was able to transform the company into a major edge routing player leading it to be acquired by Ericsson for $2.1 billion. Likewise, he helped expand Cisco's service provider division from a $500 million business to a $4 billion business in four years.

He plans to apply that growth experience to MetaSwitch. "We have three product threads today, softswitch being one, where we are an industry leader, and then the applications space and the protocol division," DeNuccio said in an interview with LightReading. "We think we can double that to six product threads. We have the base and the ability to enter multiple product areas."

For more:
- see the release here
- LightReading also has this analysis

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Reliance Communications' asset sale draws little interest

Sean Buckley — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 06:57:35 -0500

After putting its network assets on the auction block in December, India's Reliance Communications hasn't gotten any serious takers.

Consisting of three main assets--the undersea FLAG optical network, Ehternet provider Yipes, and Virtual Network Operator Vanco--a Reuter's story revealed that sources close to the deal said that Reliance had extended its late-January deadline to bid, but even with the extension hardly anyone came forward with an offer.

Sources did reveal that Singapore Technologies Telemedia is mulling over whether to make an offer, but has refused to say anything publicly. NTT has also been cited as a possible buyer, but a company spokesperson immediately denied that they had made a bid on the assets.

There are a few theories as to why the assets are drawing such scant interest. First off, there are concerns over the debts the Reliance assets carry. After all, Reliance bought FLAG out of bankruptcy, while Yipes was bought from a third-party company that also brought it out of bankruptcy.

Then there's the reportedly $3 billion price tag that Reliance put on the assets. It's possible that would-be bidders may not want to pay that much for the assets. One source said the assets aren't worth more than $600 million.

"How could they possibly believe the thing is worth five times what it was four years earlier?" the source said.

At this point, however, Reliance continues to publicly state that it's not selling the assets even though Reuters said it found documents that prove they are indeed up for sale. One reason why Reliance is considering selling off these assets is due to a drop in company revenues. As of the end of December 2009, Reliance GlobalCom's revenue dropped 12.5 percent to $428 million.

For more:
- Reuters has this article

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Reliance Globalcom: A sale in the making? - Top Telecom M&As for 2009
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Global Ethernet--Making the interconnection
Here comes Reliance Globalcom

Comcast comes out swinging in Q4 09

Sean Buckley — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:51:44 -0500

Thanks to strong gains in voice, data and digital video, Comcast beat Wall Street's expectations for Q4 09. These factors helped drive Comcast's Q4 revenue up to $955 million, an increase over $412 million in Q4 08.

During the fourth quarter, Comcast raked in 247,000 new broadband data customers, but only 243,000 phone customers. Kaufman Brothers' analyst Todd Mitchell forecast that the MSO would bring on only 194,000 new Internet subscribers and 296,000 phone subscribers.

At the same time, losses in its basic video subscriber base widened with more than 199,000 basic video subscribers turning off Comcast during the quarter.

"The results were pretty much in line with expectations," said Mitchell in a Reuters article. "They are good enough numbers that the stock should breath a sigh of relief."

Going forward, the two major initiatives Comcast will be chasing will be the completion of its DOCSIS 3.0 network rollout and its analog reclamation project otherwise known as Project Calvalry. As of the end of 2009, the MSO said it had rolled out DOCSIS 3.0 capabilities on 75 percent of its cable plant, a process it is confident will be finished early this year. Meanwhile, Comcast reports that Project Calvary is 35 percent complete and that it will have it "substantially complete" by the end of this year.

For more:
- Reuters has this article
- CableDigitalNews highlights wideband, digital rollout

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Broadband stimulus: An enabler, not a panacea

Sean Buckley — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 11:46:42 -0500

As the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) gets set to pore over a new set of broadband stimulus funding applications, the focus in the second round will be on middle mile networks that will carry last mile traffic to Internet hubs and provide connectivity to schools, hospitals, etc. At the same time, both the NTIA and RUS (which will focus the second round of funding on last mile projects) also have the daunting task of sending out rejection letters to those entities that won't be getting funding.

Like everything else I have seen in the telecom industry over the past almost 12 years (this July), the middle mile idea, while only coined fairly recently, has really existed as a concept for decades. First, there are the telephone cooperatives that banded their resources together in particular regions to build sometimes statewide networks to support everything from basic LD voice, legacy data (Frame Relay/ATM), video and increasingly optical and next-gen IP connectivity. Iowa Network Services (INS), South Dakota Network (SDN), and more recently Independent Optical Networks (ION), which just won a $39.7 million broadband grant, come to mind in this category.

Similarly, Research and Education providers MCNC, Merit Networks and Internet2 have separately focused their attention on providing network connectivity to colleges and even local high schools and elementary schools. Internet2 now wants to break out of its R&E shell by extending its network expertise to community anchor institutions by creating what it calls a "Unified Community Anchor Network."

Lastly, there's the traditional network wholesalers (Level 3 and 360 Networks) who interestingly built long-haul networks that passed through rural towns, they never could sell to the smaller carriers that resided along these paths because the expense to connect to them just could not be justified. But with broadband stimulus monies in hand, these service providers would simply extend connections from their existing regeneration huts to connect to smaller carriers with more affordable connectivity.

Likewise, providing connectivity to schools, hospitals and libraries is no less important. Still, despite the progress made in North Carolina (MCNC) and New York's Westchester County telecom network, connectivity for schools in other states such as New Hampshire continues to be, well, woeful.

I found out this reality first hand when I headed up north to Nashua to visit managed service provider Destek. A major focus for Destek is to provide managed services to schools in New Hampshire. The connectivity issue is not technological, but rather financial. And while it would be great if Nashua and the other towns that the company serves had the benefit of a fiber-based middle mile network built by FairPoint or a group of smaller towns, what will continue to hold back these areas is just the sheer cost of building a network to serve what are very remote areas.

"The ideal solution would be to bring fiber to every school, but it costs $10,000 a mile to install fiber," said Brian Susnock, President of Destek. "Some of these schools in these rural areas of New Hampshire are sometimes set back two miles into the woods and it's awfully difficult for them to raise that kind of money."

To overcome these shortcomings, Destek has found creative ways to allocate greater bandwidth over existing copper facilities via bonding T1s it rents from FairPoint Communications and wrapping that connection with good old customer service and 24x7 tech support.

Even as middle mile networks go up, I do agree there's no promise that we'll see a torrent of last mile network investments. What's worse, a middle mile network won't do much if students don't have the broadband connections at home to connect to the schools or other interactive applications.

While the Obama administration had the right intentions, these issues illustrate the reality that broadband stimulus will be an enabler for those entities that win funding, but not a panacea. --Sean

Internet2, LambdaRail want to expand their community presence

Sean Buckley — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 10:41:15 -0500

Internet2 and National LambdaRail have always been the household name in network connectivity for research and education networks, but the two organizations have aspirations to extend high speed connectivity to libraries, hospitals, and public safety as well.

Joined by 25 other R&E and national networking providers, Internet2 and Lambda Rail put their proposal to build a "Unified Community Anchor Network" on the table as a response to the FCC's proposed National Broadband Plan.

Arguing that previous efforts to extend broadband connectivity to anchor organizations have been a failure, the groups wrote in the filing that "A UCAN does not need to be created--it needs to be completed."

While the UCAN proposal may sound like another "middle mile" connectivity project proposal, the groups have an even bigger goal: expanding the e-rate program, which subsidizes data connectivity for schools and libraries. In addition, the proposal argues that Congress should develop a second stimulus bill for the National Broadband Plan.

For more:
- see the release here
- Connected Planet also has this article

Cisco could unveil new core router soon

Sean Buckley — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 07:00:18 -0500

Watch out Alcatel-Lucent and Juniper, Cisco may be soon taking the covers off the long-awaited follow-up to its CRS-1 core router, the MSC 120.

From a feeds and speeds perspective, the MSC 120 could give Alcatel-Lucent and Juniper a run for their money. With 120 Gbps per slot, the MSC 120 would surpass either Juniper's T1600 or Alcatel-Lucent's 7750 Service Router which support 100 Gbps-per-slot of capacity. A 24-port version of the MSC would offer 2.88 Tbps of total capacity.

But it appears that competitors could have time to respond to the threat. While Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Ittai Kidron wrote in a research note that the new router could come out as early as next month, ASIC issues could push it back until the middle of 2011.

"We believe Cisco has recently discovered issues with the supporting ASIC design, which could require a material redesign of the platform," wrote Kidron. "This could delay product availability until mid-2011."

For more:
- LightReading has this analysis
- Network World also had this article

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Bell Canada lays out its FTTN service plans

Sean Buckley — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 06:25:22 -0500

Bell Canada's marketing gurus seem to have taken a page from Verizon's playbook for fiber broadband when they named their new Fiber to the Node-based 'Fibe' broadband service. The name 'Fibe,' as pointed out by Broadband DSL Reports, is somewhat misleading in that unlike all-fiber broadband service where the fiber goes all the way to the side of the home, Bell Canada's service drives fiber to a node located likely 3,000 feet near a home and then uses a copper-based VDSL2 connection to connect to the end customer.

But if you're lucky to live in an area where Bell has plowed fiber near your neighborhood, you can get your choice of four service grades: Fibe 6/1 Mbps, Fibe 12/1Mbps, Fibe 18/1 Mbps and Fibe 25/7 Mbps. Of course, there's a catch with the service. Bell places 25, 50, and 75 GB monthly usage caps on each of the service tiers. What's more, you'll have to pay an extra $5 if you just buy the 'Fibe' without bundling in its new IPTV or satellite TV service.

While it's clear that Bell, like Qwest and AT&T, is set on juicing as much out of its existing copper network as it can in Brownfield areas, its actions mirror the war of words in the U.S. that have emerged between cable operators and the large telcos. Comcast, for example, came under fire from the Better Business Bureau over its claims that it has an all fiber access network, when in actuality it's still connecting to the customer via coax. Whatever the arguments are, the end result is a misleading message for consumers.

For more:
- Broadband DSL Reports has this article

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Comcast makes move on New Global Telecom

Sean Buckley — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 00:22:33 -0500

Comcast may have been a late bloomer in the business services race, but its proposed acquisition of VoIP wholesaler New Global Telecom could be signaling that M&A is part of growing its business services portfolio.

While there are little to no financial or logistical details on the acquisition, NGT did reveal that it served over 100,000 VoIP seats.

"NGT is an innovative company that has expertise in developing, deploying, and managing voice and unified communications services that we plan to make available to our business services customers," Comcast said in a statement Tuesday afternoon. "Doing so will not only enhance the services we offer today, but will also enable us to deliver them more quickly and cost-effectively."

NGT is only one piece of its business growth strategy. Looking to expand beyond the lower end of the SMB market (1-20 employees), Comcast is also in the process of acquiring Cimco, a Chicago-based CLEC that it hopes will give it an entry point into medium-sized business customer accounts.

For more:
- Cable Digital News has this article
- xChange has this article

KDDI's J:COM purchase comes under regulatory scrutiny

Sean Buckley — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 23:18:12 -0500

Japan's KDDI move to improve its growth prospects by buying a big stake in Jupiter Telecom (J:Com) has hit a speed bump as news broke that financial regulators are looking into whether its plan is legal.

If regulators find there has been any wrongdoing, KDDI may have to pay an $884 million fine. Since KDDI's pending acquisition would make it the largest shareholder in J:COM, it's required to make a public offer for the shares and get shareholder approval.

This latest development comes only weeks after KDDI put a $4 billion bid on the table to acquire a 38 percent stake in J:COM from Liberty Global. KDDI's impending purchase of a large stake in J:COM is obviously strategic for two reasons: not only would it enable them to reach 3.2 million residential subscriber homes, but have access to another fiber network besides incumbent provider NTT.

For more:
- Telegeography has this article

Unions, FairPoint work to get company back on course

Sean Buckley — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:46:43 -0500

In an unprecedented move, the International Brotherhood Electrical Workers (IBEW) and the Communications Workers of America (CWA) unions have struck a pact with FairPoint to right the ship out of bankruptcy and improve services.

Under the terms of the tentative agreement, the two groups have established a "Joint Committee for Operational Savings" that they say will "pursue all ideas to reduce costs, improve revenue, and increase productivity" to help FairPoint recover from bankruptcy.

FairPoint and its secured creditors said in a press release they would not ask for Section 1113 relief, a part of the bankruptcy code that addresses union contracts, from the obligations it has in current labor agreements. Contracts with IBEW Local union chapters 2320, 2326, 2327 and CWA Local 1400 have been extended for another year and a 2010 wage increase will be put off until the last year of the contract.

For more:
- New Hampshire Union Leader has this article

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Cyan's CyAlliance targets diverse wireless backhaul needs

Sean Buckley — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 12:04:02 -0500

Cyan's multi-vendor program CyAlliance is proof positive that solving a complex problem like wireless backhaul takes a united front that leverages the brain trust of multiple diverse sources. Joining Cyan's CyAlliance are a diverse group of wireless backhaul vendors that span various disciplines including Ethernet (ANDA and Hatteras), multi-service platforms (Overture Networks), and microwave (Dragonwave).

Given the diverse network needs for wireless backhaul, CyAlliance will provide interoperability assurance via verification testing, problem resolution through escalation processes in addition to collaboration on architectural considerations such as end to end packet synchronization in multi-vendor deployments. In addition to wireless backhaul, the CyAllaince will address other emerging services and technologies.

One service provider that spoke out in support of the CyAlliance was current Cyan customer IRIS Networks that provides regional transport services for a diverse set of ILECs, CLECS and ISPs in Tennessee and some surrounding states that provide a host of services, including wireless backhaul. IRIS said that the CyAlliance would help it "further simplify the planning, implementation and operations across multiple vendor solutions [as well as] further improve our ability to reliably serve our customers."

For more:
- see the release here

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O2 UK puts wireless/wireline core into BT Wholesale's hands

Sean Buckley — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 11:33:45 -0500

As O2 gets ready to compete in the UK's wireline voice market this March, the service provider is turning to its old parent company BT to oversee its wireless and wireline core network connections. While the financial terms of the five-year deal were not revealed, BT Wholesale will consolidate O2's wireless and wireline networks onto its 21 CN network platform.

What's driving O2 to take this route is the increased demand for wireless and wireline data services. O2 believes that by consolidating its network onto BT's network platform it will not only be able to meet customer demand for data services, but reduce capex spending.

This is not the first time the once-aligned carriers have worked together. Currently, O2 uses BT Wholesale for core network management support and a managed network service that enables it to target business customers with traditional wireline voice and broadband services.

"As we move to an all IP world and as data traffic volumes increase, the consolidation of our fixed and mobile core networks is a common sense approach that will help future-proof our business and provide the best possible service for our customers," said Nigel Purdy, Head of Networks, Telefónica O2 UK Ltd in a release.

For more:
- see the release here

Optimum Lightpath lights up 40 Gbps optical transport service

Sean Buckley — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 10:54:36 -0500

Optimum Lightpath is answering its business customer's call for more bandwidth with its new 40 Gbps optical transport service.

Offered with a flat-rate pricing model throughout its entire footprint, Optimum Lightpath believes the new 40 Gbps service is well suited for New York Metro customers, a region that includes a number of major financial institutions. The service will likely appeal to financial trading houses that are continually looking for ways to shave off any bit of latency they can so they won't be beat out by a competitor.

Instead of having to purchase multiple 10 Gbps connections, which has been the typical route business customers have taken to expand their bandwidth allocation, a migration to 40 Gbps can provide a sizeable foundation for future bandwidth needs. Enterprise customers can not only consolidate multiple 10 Gbps links, but it can also support 100 Gbps services when the need arises.

For more:
- see the release here

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Vertical: U.S. Business Ethernet rises up

Sean Buckley — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 10:26:31 -0500

Business Ethernet service may have yet to be a mass market offering, but it's hard to not notice that enterprises' demand for the service is driving both incumbent and competitive players to up their game.

According to Vertical Systems Group's 2009 U.S. Business Ethernet Leaderboard, nine service providers that included both incumbent and competitive providers rose to the top of the business Ethernet heap: AT&T, Verizon, tw telecom, Cox, Qwest, XO, Time Warner Cable and Level 3. To gain a spot on Vertical's Leaderboard, the service provider had to hold four percent or more of the U.S. market based on retail port installations by the end of 2009.

Once again, AT&T led the group with fellow RBOC Verizon not far behind. Separately, Verizon and AT&T held the third and fourth spot on Vertical's Global Business Ethernet Leaderboard.

Outside of the RBOCs, one of the trends that continued in the competitive segment of the U.S. Ethernet market in 2009 was the growing presence of cable MSOs. Leading the charge for cable MSOs delivering Ethernet was Cox, which has set an aggressive sales target of $2 billion for its Cox Business unit. It is focusing greater attention on targeting larger business segments such as healthcare and wireless backhaul.

For more:
- see the release here

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Kathleen Abernathy joins Frontier's regulatory team

Sean Buckley — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 06:06:10 -0500

Just as Frontier moves to become the largest rural telco with the acquisition of Verizon's rural lines, the ILEC has brought aboard former FCC commissioner Kathleen Abernathy as its new Executive Vice President of Regulatory and Government Affairs.

Abernathy--who served as an FCC commissioner from 2001 to 2005 under chairmen Michael Powell and Kevin Martin--last week left Frontier's board of directors, a position she has held since 2006. Subsequently, she will resign from the Washington, D.C. law firm Wilkinson Barker Knauer, where she currently serves as a law partner, to join Frontier on March 1.

Reporting to Maggie Wilderotter, Frontier's Chairman and CEO, Abernathy's regulatory experience will come in handy as the company morphs into a much larger service provider when it completes its acquisition of Verizon's rural lines.

"Frontier is in the process of a transformational transaction with Verizon Communications that will triple the size of the company and demands top-tier executive management," said Wilderotter in a release. "With Kathleen's appointment, we are assured of having on-board seasoned talent that will help guide the new Frontier."

While the deal has gotten the majority of state regulatory approvals (it still needs four other states and the FCC's approval), Frontier continues to face opposition from local politicians and unions. These groups fear that the acquisition will not only mean massive layoffs, but that Frontier will face similar operational issues that led FairPoint to declare bankruptcy.

For more:
- see the release here

France Telecom to reshuffle the management deck

Sean Buckley — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:55:50 -0500

After Stefane Richard, France Telecom's heir to the CEO throne, led a chorus asking CEO Didier Lombard to step down, the telco might instead decouple the CEO and Chairman posts.

This move, if granted board approval, would then elevate Stephane Richard to CEO and current CEO Didier Lombard to chairman. When Richard joined France Telecom last June after working in the French finance ministry, the plan was that he would take the CEO reins when Lombard retires next June.

What's accelerated the timeline for the management change has been a series of employee suicides. If the board approves the proposed moves, Richard would then be overseeing France Telecom's daily operations. In October, Richard replaced former deputy CEO Louis-Pierre Wenes who decided to resign after the 24th France Telecom employee committed suicide.

Timing of this proposed change comes as France Telecom not only gets ready to put out its 2009 annual financial results on February 25, but also the launch of a major fiber-based broadband project.

For more:
- Reuters has this article

Ralls County Electric finds its FTTH pulse

Sean Buckley — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 06:54:03 -0500

With its $19 million of broadband stimulus money in hand, Missouri-based Ralls County Electric Cooperative and partner Pulse broadband are getting down to the business of building an open access Fiber to the Home (FTTH) network that looks and smells a lot like a typical cable company's Hybrid Fiber Coax (HFC) architecture.

Touted as an example of how other electric cooperatives could build FTTH broadband networks, Ralls is using technology that was created by who else but the two men that pioneered today's HFC cable architecture: former Time Warner Cable technologists Dave Pangrac and James Chiddix.

The FTTH technology was developed by Pangrac's consulting outfit that was bought by Pulse Broadband last summer, leverages a cable-like distributed architecture with no more than four fibers versus a typical Passive Optical Network (PON) deployment that could use hundreds of fibers. Pangrac said in an interview with LightReading that its FTTH technology "really is a low-level approach to how you make this cost-effective."

Pulse's technology appears to be already having an impact. In addition to being deployed by various broadband providers since 2006 through a technology license arrangement with CommScope, Pulse is not only talking with other service providers that want to use the open access network, but is fielding calls from other electric cooperatives that want to use the FTTH technology.

For more:
- LightReading has this article

Carphone puts demerger details on the table

Sean Buckley — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 06:07:05 -0500

Now that Carphone Warehouse has set the end of March to officially demerge its two units (TalkTalk and New Carphone Warehouse), it has finally revealed how the new companies will look.

Under the proposed plan, the company will be separated into two holding companies: TalkTalk, which would focus on providing telecom services, and New Carphone Warehouse, a retail arm consisting of a 50 percent piece in Best Buy Europe and 47.5 percent piece of Virgin Mobile France. Both TalkTalk and New Carphone Warehouse will be traded as standalone units on the London Stock Exchange.

As expected, the demerger will come with a fair amount of executive shuffling. Overseeing both units will be current Carphone Warehouse CEO Charles Dunstone, who will take on the chairman role of both TalkTalk and New Carphone Warehouse. Dido Harding will become TalkTalk's CEO, while Carphone's current CFO Roger Taylor will become CEO of New Carphone Warehouse.

For more:
- Financial Times has this article

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IP migration puts temporary dent into private line revenue

Sean Buckley — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:41:34 -0500

Private line services have enjoyed years of steady growth, but it appears that the $34 billion market segment is about to enter a short period of decline.

While enterprises and wireless operators used private lines to connect their business sites to the Internet and wireless operators used them to connect towers to wireline networks, Insight Research's report "Private Line and Wavelength Services, 2009-2014," reveals that the ongoing migration from legacy services (Frame Relay and ATM) to IP networks is coming at the expense of shrinking private line revenue.

Despite the initial slowdown, Insight Research's president Robert Rosenberg says that private lines still have plenty of utility and revenue will eventually rebound in a big way.

"The transition away from frame and ATM will put a break on overall private line industry revenue growth for a couple of years," said Rosenberg in a release. "However, private line demand remains strong for wireless backhaul, local bandwidth for caching IPTV video services, and for facilitating VoIP. These are the growth areas for private line, and will be in the years ahead."

For more:
- see the release here

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AT&T U-Verse VoIP service hits 1 million mark

Sean Buckley — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 23:30:03 -0500

While AT&T's Q4 09 wireline earnings saw the usual declines, U-Verse Digital Home Voice service, which now reaches 1 million customers, was a big contributor to the service provider's IP service growth during the quarter.

A driving factor in AT&T's residential VoIP U-Verse service growth is that customers are buying it as part of a video bundle. Since launching the U-Verse VoIP service two years ago, AT&T said that more than 67 percent of new U-Verse TV subscribers will bundle U-Verse Voice service.

Unlike Verizon who struggled to meet its subscriber goals for FiOS TV during the fourth quarter, AT&T signed up 248,000 new U-Verse customers in Q4 09, bringing it to 2.1 million U-Verse subscribers overall and bringing on 1 million additional customers in 2009.

For more:
- see the release here

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Juniper gains lead in Q4, but challenges remain

Sean Buckley — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 22:45:30 -0500

Juniper may have eked out a slight lead over analyst expectations with $941 million in revenues for Q4 09, but keeping that momentum alive in Q1 2010 will be far from easy.

One analyst that's remaining cautious about Juniper's prospects for Q1 2010 and beyond is Catherine Trebnick of Avian Securities who says that Juniper's approach and lack of capabilities in certain areas could inhibit their ability to compete for new service provider business. "Our cautious stance remains predicated on longer term challenges in the service provider segment," she wrote in a research note.

Despite demand for their products from large tier one operators such as AT&T, Trebnick believes there are three primary areas where Juniper could struggle going forward: a movement toward Ethernet platforms; lack of a packet optical partner to target Verizon's Packet optical RFP; and wireless capabilities.

For more:
- xChange has this article

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Vodafone Germany launches two-pronged VDSL assault

Sean Buckley — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 22:20:25 -0500

After hatching a pilot VDSL deployment last July, Vodafone Germany will bring the service to 750 municipal areas in a dual phase strategy that will leverage its own network as well as rented facilities from incumbent carrier Deutsche Telekom.

In phase one, the service provider will add VDSL capabilities to about 2,700 switches on its own wireline network with the ability to offer up to 50 Mbps speeds to any home that's within 1 km of the switch. Then, in areas where it does not have network facilities, it will rent access to DT's fiber backbone. Vodafone is currently waiting for Germany's Federal Network Agency (FNA) to establish tariffs to access DT's fiber facilities.

Upon completion at the end of this summer, Vodafone projects that its VDSL network will be able to reach four million homes.

For more:
- Telegeography has this article

Nokia Siemens Networks' revenues fell hard in 09

Sean Buckley — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 11:43:03 -0500

For Nokia Siemens Networks, 2009 will go down in the company's history as a year of missed opportunities and disappointments, and its 2009 total revenues reflects those misteps.

The company's total revenues for 2009 were $17.6 billion, an almost 18 percent decline over 2008. NSN's loss is much steeper than rival Ericsson, who reported that yearly earnings declined only 9 percent to $28.6 billion.

In addition to suffering top line losses in 2009, NSN reported $2.3 billion in operating losses, the majority of which were reported in Q3 due to goodwill impairment charges.

Despite the losses, NSN did report $23.8 million in Q4 09 operating profit as well as beating out Huawei for TeliaSonera's LTE rollout. What's more, NSN's professional services unit continued to do well in Q4. During the fourth quarter, the unit generated $2.38 billion or about 47 percent of that quarter's revenue of $5.08 billion.

For more:
- LightReadingEurope has this article

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Time Warner Cable rises up in Q4

Sean Buckley — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 11:21:16 -0500

Time Warner Cable seems to be bucking the downward trend that plagued some telcos and the vendor community in that it saw its profits increase during the fourth quarter of 09.

TWC also beat analyst net income expectations. For the quarter, TWC reported $322 million, or 91 cents a share in net income, versus analyst forecasts of 88 cents a share. Company revenue also was up 3 percent to 4.5 billion.

Of course, TWC saw inevitable losses and additions. During the quarter, the company lost 105,000 video subscribers. Citing a slowdown in customer spending, Time Warner Cable only roped in 120,000 new broadband and 75,000 new phone customers. Analysts expected the cable MSO to only loose 30,000 video subscribers and add 100,000 new Internet and 120,000 phone customers, respectively.

While its residential customer additions slowed in Q4, a big focus of growth in 2010 for TWC will be commercial business services. In its earnings release, Chief Operating Officer Landell Hobbs said he expects the MSO's commercial services revenue to grow above 20 percent in 2010.

For more:
- see the earnings release here
- Reuters also has this article

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Verizon's New York FiOS deployment is on course

Sean Buckley — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 10:40:07 -0500

Despite a slowdown in subscriber growth in Q4 09, Verizon has strong ambitions for its FiOS Fiber to the Premises (FTTP) network deployment and its related FiOS TV service. A key piece of its FTTP goals is to penetrate further into the competitive New York City market.

Last year, Verizon expanded the availability of FiOS TV into more than 140 new New York City neighborhoods, located in the city's five boroughs, bringing the service to a total of 810,000 homes. Since launching FiOS TV in 108 neighborhoods in July 2008, the service has been expanded to segments of 253 neighborhoods.

In targeting New York City with FiOS, a major piece of the puzzle lies in the ability to target Multi Dwelling Units (MDUs) with FTTP. Although Verizon has done some MDU deployments in Florida and New York City, analysts believe that Verizon is using New York as the guinea pig market for MDU-based FTTP deployments.

Touting itself as a viable video and broadband competitor to area cable operators Cablevision and Time Warner Cable, Christopher Creager, president of Verizon's Northeast region, said that the company is on track to reach its goal of bringing FTTP to all parts of the city's five boroughs by mid-2014.

"Rollout of FiOS TV is on the fast track in the city," said Creager in a release. "We've continued to add features and have made numerous enhancements to FiOS TV since we first launched it in the city.

For more:
- see the release here

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DT won't be obligated to share VDSL fiber pipes

Sean Buckley — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 09:57:37 -0500

Deutsche Telekom's ongoing fight with competitors over access to its VDSL network took a new turn as Germany's highest court, the Bundesverwaltungsgericht, ruled that the incumbent operator does not have to give competitive carriers access to the dark fiber on its VDSL network. Competitors, however, will still be able to get access to the street cabinets and conduits as mandated by German telecom regulator Federal Network Agency (FNA) in December.

The FNA issued its ruling in December on what DT would be required to provide to competitors after the European Court of Justice ruled that the agency would have to end the regulatory holiday' on its fiber network infrastructure.

Competitors have continued to clash with German incumbent over access to its VDSL network. Among those competitors are Vodafone Germany, which launched a pilot VDSL deployment last July, and German competitive associations VATM and Breko over access to DT's VDSL network.

For more:
- Telegeography has this article

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Salisbury, NC progresses with its municipal FTTH deployment

Sean Buckley — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 07:11:43 -0500

Salisbury, NC's dreams of transforming itself into a so-called 'smart city' with a Fiber to the Home (FTTH) network deployment took two big steps this week as the city revealed that it has employed Ericsson for IPTV services and Zhone for next-gen PON equipment.

While minimal details on the IPTV deployment were revealed in the release about what specific platforms will be used, Ericsson Federal did say it would provide IPTV technology that will enable Salisbury to build out an IPTV portal and service suite. Serving as the underlying bandwidth engine for the FTTH network will be Zhone, which will provide its MXK and zNID FTTH solutions.

Looking at the network as an anchor to attract new businesses, Salisbury has high hopes for its municipal FTTH network. Given the challenges that other municipalities (namely Utah's iProvo) have faced in building out FTTH networks, it will be interesting to see how Salisbury's ambitions shake out. However, it appears that Salisbury did do its homework. Before officially pulling the trigger, city officials conducted their own feasibility study and a business case analysis.

For more:
- see the Ericsson release here
- and Zhone's release here