Dalton FTTH network paying off
By: By Carol Wilson
Having achieved its goals in deploying fiber to the home for two years in Dalton, Ga., Dalton Utilities is now branching out into the surrounding Whitfield County area and beginning to explore delivering wholesale services and deploying a faster Gigabit passive optical network....
AOL opens AIM to VoIP integration
By: By Vince Vittore
AOL is expected to announce next week that it is integrating its instant messaging platform into the dashboard of VoIP software and service provider IPcelerate....
McLeodUSA cuts 240 workers
By: By Ed Gubbins
McLeodUSA cut 240 employees from its ranks yesterday, the competitive local exchange carrier announced, reducing its total workforce to about 1,970 people...
Telephia: 71% like bundling for single-bill benefit
By: By Dan O'Shea
Market research firm Telephia has released recent findings from its Emerging Personal Communications Options (EPCO) survey suggesting many consumers feel that the ability to have a single bill for all services is one of the main benefits of bundling...
Cavalier chooses Amino set-top
By: By Carol Wilson
CLEC Cavalier Telephone will use Amino AmiNET124 set-top box as it rolls out IPTV to its 180,000 customers in the mid-Atlantic region of the U.S....
Nortel and Microsoft collaborate on collaboration
By: By Tim McElligott
Nortel Networks and Microsoft are redoubling their efforts to bring collaborative, real-time capabilities to the businesses market through an expanded strategic relationship that advances the use of voice call control through the business desktop...
SA, Microsoft tie expected IPTV knot
By: By Carol Wilson
In a move that surprised no one, Scientific Atlanta and Microsoft announced yesterday they will team up on IPTV set-tops, combining Microsoft’s operating software with SA’s set-top....
BT outsources customer self-help to Motive
By: By Carol Wilson
A year after BT standardized on Motive’s software for its broadband customer self-help operation, the British service provider has gone one step further – it has outsourced its customer self-help operation to the Texas-based software company, in a move expected to save 500,000 pounds per year....
Medicine via VPN: Pharmacy goes self-help
A New York pharmacy that used videoconferencing to make it easier for customers to get prescriptions around-the-clock is now marketing its solution to other retailers nationwide....
XO launches wholesale residential service
By: By Carol Wilson
XO Communications will leverage its existing network facilities to offer other CLECs a chance to compete in the residential voice market. While XO itself remains focused on the business market, the company believes it can offer a more cost-effective way for CLECs to continue to compete with incumbents in the residential market, said Ernie Ortega, president of carrier sales. Since its acquistion with Allegiance, XO now has 950 collocation facilities in 70 major markets, and can use those facilities to provide local switching and interconnection services for other service providers, he said. ...
Arvig Communication deploys MetaSwitch
By: By Vince Vittore
Looking to expand beyond its Perham, Minn., of operations, Arvig Communication Systems today announced that it has deployed a Metaswitch VP3510 Class 4/5 softswitch and UC9000 unified communications system. The switch also will be used to relieve capacity on Arvig’s existing switch, which is has been under pressure because of a rapidly expanding customer base....
MCI launches integrated security service
By: By Carol Wilson
MCI today launched a set of managed security services it believes provides unprecedented security protection for enterprise data services within the network and on premises. The “cloud to core” approach unites MCI’s Internet backbone network security with the core enterprise security of the NetSec acquisition into a single package to address the growing complexity of threats to corporate data networks....
IPTV to hit its stride in 2008
By: By Vince Vittore
The market for IPTV will reach 21.7 million subscribers in 2009, though most of those will be in Asia and Europe, according to recent research from Parks Associates. Additionally, despite big projects launching this year and next from the likes of SBC and Verizon, the market won’t begin taking off until 2008. ...
MFA close to finalizing two key specifications
By: By Carol Wilson
The newly formed MFA Forum will announce next week that it is close to finalizing two key interoperability agreements: one to allow interworking between ATM and frame relay and an IP-MPLS control plane and another to remove the 7 gigabit per second ceiling on ATM transport. ...
Alcatel names first GPON customer
By: By Ed Gubbins
Alcatel this week announced the first customer of the gigabit passive optical networking (GPON) equipment it unveiled in May. ...
BPL chip vendor gets $24.5M
By: By Ed Gubbins
Intellon, a chip vendor in the nascent broadband over powerline space, has collected $24.5 million in a B series round of equity financing, the company announced late Wednesday. ...
Vonage eyeing IPO
By: By Tim McElligott
Vonage is reportedly going to test the nerves of investors by filing for an initial public offering according to the Wall Street Journal, which said Vonage is looking to raise as much as $600 million. ...
AboveNet adds slower, cheaper connections
By: By Ed Gubbins
AboveNet has launched three lower cost, lower bandwidth “Lite” versions of its existing IP and metro Ethernet services, the company announced Wednesday....
Google, Skype rachet up VoIP competition
By: By Carol Wilson
The battle of the Web titans has begun--and where the fallout lands is still uncertain...
Sprint spin-off will seek rural telco partners
By: By Vince Vittore
COLORADO SPRINGS—The as yet unnamed local telecommunications division of Sprint, which will be spun off from Sprint Nextel, plans to act in a cooperative manner with other rural telcos, according to Bill Blessing, head of Strategic Planning and Business Development for the new company....
Verizon denies FiOS TV launch in NY
By: By Carol Wilson
Verizon is denying a Web-based report that it will launch its FiOS TV service in Long Island, NY on Sept. 1. The report has been posted on the Web-based BroadbandReports.com site, from an individual who claimed to be part of a marketing trial Verizon held in N.Y....
Avaya and Intel to collaborate on mobile technology
By: By Tim McElligott
From Intel’s Developer Forum this week, Intel and Avaya announced their intent to collaborate on optimizing Avaya’s SIP-based, IP Telephony Softphone for use with notebook computers using Intel’s Centrino mobile technology....
Verizon, Yahoo hint at future FiOS content
By: By Carol Wilson
Verizon and Yahoo! today launched the co-branded service they promised eight months ago and included a new, lower-cost DSL offering aimed at luring dial-up customers onto the phone company’s high-speed Internet service...
Global Internet traffic growth slows by half
By: By Ed Gubbins
The growth of global Internet traffic slowed by about half this year, according to new research from TeleGeography. Global cross-border Internet backbone traffic grew 49% by mid-2005 after growing 103% by mid-2004....
Are you ready for DISH, U.S.A.?
By: By Carol Wilson
Forget naming your baby after a commercial product or tattooing a Web site on your body, the latest bizarre branding offer comes from DISH Network and its parent company, EchoStar, who are offering any U.S. municipality a crack at 10 years of free satellite TV service to all of its residents, in exchange for permanently adopting the legal name DISH. ...
