FirstLight Fiber to supply services to Vermont Teddy Bear Co.; Smart homes rake in $339M in revenue, says Gartner

Wireline news from across the Web:

> FirstLight Fiber said that The Vermont Teddy Bear Co. has selected its fiber-based, high-speed Internet services for its corporate headquarters in Shelburne, Vt. Release

> Smart homes are forecast to grow to $339 million in revenue by 2016, according to Gartner Research. Media Post article

> Cisco's John Chambers declined to say whether the company would cede to China's demands to be able to control equipment deployed in the world's largest Internet market. Reuters article

> Graybar, a distributor of electrical, communications and data networking products and provider of related supply chain management and logistics services, announced moves to larger locations in South Bend, Ind., and Tampa, Fla. Release

> More than 2 million fiber connections (FTTB/FTTH) were available by mid-2015 in Germany, but only about 20 percent of them were used, according to a report by the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA). Telecompaper article

Cable News
> In two major deals involving key pay-TV video services vendors, IBM has agreed to acquire Clearleap for an undisclosed sum, while Harmonic has entered an agreement to buy France's Thomson Video Networks in a deal valued at $90 million. Article

> Cox Communications apparently posted a guide to prospective cord cutters, warning them of the unforeseen costs associated with ditching pay-TV. However, the post -- originally unearthed by cable-hating tech blog exstreamist.com -- appears to have been taken down. Article

Installer News
> CenturyLink may provide over the top video service as a way to help it reduce ongoing deployment costs while reaching more of its customer base with video services. Article

Online Video News
> Amazon Prime subscribers who also stream standalone OTT services like Showtime Anytime, Starz, Curiosity Stream or Ring TV Boxing can now manage those multiple subscriptions through Amazon's new Streaming Partners program.  Article

Wireless News
> Mozilla will cease development of Firefox OS and will no longer sell phones running the platform. Article

> LightSquared announced an agreement with Deere & Company that it hopes will create a framework it can use to settle its conflicts with other players in the GPS industry. Article

And finally … DDoS attacks hit a record peak, says Akamai. ZDNet article