Fiber Optic News

3M Teams up with FiberZone to Sell Automated Fiber Management System for the Data Center

2012-01-17T09:09:00.000-05:00

AUSTIN, Texas--Today, 3M announced a strategic business alliance with FiberZone Networks, the leading provider of Automated Fiber Management (AFM) solutions, to bring its AFM system to the data center market.

From always-on movies to data storage in the cloud to corporate and consumer digital archives, managing the data infrastructure has become a critical discipline for today’s enterprises. A single outage can affect thousands of customers and significantly impact the revenue of network and cloud providers.

The AFM system from FiberZone Networks enables remote provisioning of a data center’s fiber network, avoiding the operational costs and downtime associated with manual operation of traditional patch panels. This allows data center operators to dynamically manage fiber connectivity based on load requirements and customer needs, enabling on-demand services and new service offerings – such as managed cage and expedited cross-connect services – along with the reliability, flexibility, fault tolerance and management for the fiber infrastructure that manual patching cannot offer.

Key to the AFM product reliability and stable performance is the patented Latched Optical Coupling (LOC™) technology. This technology creates a secure, physical optical fiber connection within the system which can be changed to a different port configuration on-demand through a software interface or programmed automatically. The fibers can be re-arranged in a NxN, non-blocking manner.

Multi-tenant data center operators, and tenants in these facilities, can optimize their operational expenditures and revenue using AFM from FiberZone Networks to minimize downtime and increase service offerings.

3M has entered into a strategic business alliance with FiberZone Networks to offer the Automated Fiber Management with Latched Optical Coupling to the data center market as an authorized sales representative.

“The FiberZone Networks AFM system uniquely addresses an emerging issue in data center infrastructure management and is a perfect complement to our own growing portfolio of solutions for data centers,” said Gordon Wiegand, 3M Communication Markets Division business development manager. “3M’s global reach, combined with FiberZone Networks’ industry-first fiber management system will help data center operators worldwide facilitate the transition to cloud data management while delivering operational efficiencies.”

“3M is one of the world’s most reputable companies and we’re proud to sell our solution alongside their market-leading products to the data center market,” said Gady Rosenfeld, vice president of Business Development and Marketing at FiberZone Networks. “3M’s scale and global reach will allow us to offer our AFM system to more customers and in new markets around the world.”

3M already offers a broad and rapidly growing portfolio of solutions for data centers, including high-speed copper, fiber and active optical cabling solutions which utilize leading-edge technologies to provide flexibility, high-performance and value. Additional products from 3M for data centers include next generation, sustainable fire protection fluid; static control products and services; medium voltage cable assemblies used for data center construction and biometric security systems.

Founded in 2003, FiberZone Networks is a privately-held corporation with offices in the United States and Israel. The company is backed by international, communications-industry focused venture capital firms Novak Biddle Venture Partners and the S-Group.

FiberZone Networks’ AFM system has been deployed by leading data center and network operators in the United States, Asia and Europe. The AFM system won the prestigious Red Herring Top-100 North American award for innovative ideas and most recently was selected as one of the Top-100 Red Herring Global award winners.

Buoyant Fiber Optics

2012-01-04T14:03:00.002-05:00

Unless you're in the industry you would not believe how much fiber optics is used in the ocean. There are many important design considerations that one doesn't have to be concerned about in normal terrestrial fiber optic deployment. One of which is buoyancy.

Learn more about what Linden Photonics is doing here.

New Cleaning Material for Fiber Optic Connectors

2011-12-22T17:10:00.002-05:00

It's been too long since my last post and there are plenty of interesting things going on in the world of fiber optics. Check out this new material being developed by Linden Photonics to clean fiber optic connectors. This stuff is the first big advancement in cleaning technology since dirt was invented. It looks pretty cool and I can't wait to learn more.

Check out the video here

Fiber Connections receives US patent for GatorLink products

2011-01-26T13:49:00.000-05:00

January 17, 2011

Fiber Connections Inc., a supplier of custom active and passive optical connectivity and conversion solutions, announced today that it received a US patent on its GatorLink media converters. Patent #7,837,397, officially received on Nov. 23, 2010, highlights the company’s commitment to connectivity innovation. GatorLink products provide a robust, modular option for taking optical fiber and power to a remote location for media conversion and distribution to up to 6 devices such as security cameras, wireless access points, VoIP phones and much more.

Larry Fingler, Fiber Connections President says, “Our GatorLink was based on our already successful Gator Patch products, which we patented in 1999. The rise in demand for small, flexible PoE extensions, drove us to develop the GatorLink and our entire Chameleon network solution.”

“The award of the GatorLink patent brings us to a total of 4 unique, patented products.” said Geoff Laycock, VP Sales and Marketing. “This is one more thing that confirms our commitment to technical excellence and innovation in fiber optic products.”

The GatorLink product is currently sold as either a stand-alone unit as part of a Chameleon network installation and offers a wide range of features including custom connector options and network monitoring via the Fiber Connections “Net-Map” system.

The patent statement indicates that the GatorLink is a “Digital Signal Media Conversion Panel” and the summary reads, in part:

‘A multi-port patch panel that comprises a housing, a multi-fiber optical cable input arrangement at least partially received in the housing, a plurality of media converters within the housing with each media converter having a fiber optic transceiver attached to fibers of the multi-fiber optic cable input arrangement and a plurality of connectors secured in the housing for connecting equipment to the patch panel using a conventional electrical signal connection. Each of the connectors is in communication with one of the media converters. The patch panel includes a separate power supply, connectable with the housing for providing power to the media converters.’

Fiber Connections Inc. designs and manufactures a wide range of optical connectivity, distribution and media conversion hardware. Corporate headquarters is in Schomberg, Ontario Canada with a manufacturing facility in Prince Edward Island, Canada, a US office in Manassas, VA and an EMEA office in the Netherlands.

Media Contact:

Lee Kellett

Fiber Connections

508-728-5599

800-353-1127

Lee.kellett@fiberc.com

NBN Co. inks Corning, Prysmian for Australian NBN FTTH fiber

2011-01-17T13:23:00.002-05:00

JANUARY 17, 2010 -- NBN Co., the company established to oversee construction of Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN), has signed contracts with Corning Cable Systems Pty. Ltd. and Prysmian to supply fiber for the FTTH project.

The Australian arm of Corning Cable Systems received the larger deal. The company reports an initial order of AUS $400 million (US $398 million) from a contract with a potential total value of AUS $1.2 billion ($US 1.19 billion). Corning will supply its FlexNAP terminal distribution system with RPX ribbon cable for aerial installations and its ALTOS ribbon cable for underground installations.

NBN Co. granted Prysmian an initial order worth AUS $150 million (US $149 million) on a contract with a potential total value of AUS $300 million (US $298.4 million) for the supply of ribbon and other multi-fiber cables. In turn, Prysmian will invest around €10 million (US $13.3 million) to manufacture the cables at its facility in Dee Why, Australia as part of a commitment to source in Australia approximately 80% of the value of its NBN contract.

With the signing of the cabling contracts, most of the major items would appear to be in place. NBN Co. has already signed deals with Alcatel-Lucent for GPON hardware as well as with Nokia Siemens.

The controversial NBN FTTH government project aims to create an open-access fiber optic network that will pass 93 percent of Australian homes and businesses within the next 10 years. The project has so far withstood repeated attempts to either scale it back or stop it completely, and was one of the major issues in Australia’s most recent national elections.

Prysmian launches public offer for Draka shares

2011-01-06T13:55:00.001-05:00

JANUARY 6, 2011-- The potential battle for control of Draka Holding NV is underway, as Prysmian has launched its public offer for ordinary shares of the Dutch fiber and cable manufacturer. Meanwhile, upstart bidder Tianjin Xinmao S&T Investment Corp. Ltd. asserted December 20 that it too would proceed with its proposed bid, Bloomberg and other media outlets reported. However, the company seems unexcited about the prospects of initiating a hostile takeover.

Prysmian is offering €8.60 in cash plus 0.6595 newly issued Prysmian ordinary shares for each Draka ordinary share. That equates to a total transaction value of €840 million. Xinmao, with backing from China Minsheng Banking Corp. and Rabobank, has offered an all-cash package worth €1 billion.

Prysmian’s offer is valid from today through February 3. An extraordinary meeting of Draka shareholders will take place January 26 to discuss the Prysmian offer.

Prysmian first announced that Draka had accepted its offer November 22, 2010. However, the offer contained an out clause that, for a price, would enable Draka to accept competing offers. Xinmao seized the opportunity almost immediately to announce its larger bid.

Despite the lower value of the offer, Draka has stuck with Prysmian as its preferred purchaser. “In determining its position, the Boards have also taken into consideration the positive advice received on 4 January 2011 from Draka's central works council, the current status of the discussions with Xinmao and the conditionality and execution risks attached to both the existing Offer by Prysmian and the potential offer by Xinmao,” Draka stated in a release issued yesterday.

“Draka has not received any further updates on the status of Xinmao’s potential offer since Xinmao’s press release, dated 20 December 2010,” the statement added. Bloomberg quoted Joop Krant of Catalyst Advisors, Xinmao’s financial advisor in the potential transaction, as saying Xinmao would not launch a hostile bid for Draka.

FTTH in US

2010-09-16T12:54:00.002-04:00

SEPTEMBER 15, 2010 -- In his semi-annual State of the FTTH Union update, RVA Market Research’s Michael Render told attendees at the FTTH Conference in Las Vegas that 6.45 million households in North America receive services via fiber to the home (FTTH) networks. Render’s research, sponsored by the FTTH Council North America, also shows that FTTH infrastructure passes nearly 20 million North American homes.The 6.45 million connection figure represents a six-month increase of just under 650,000. The number of current homes passed -- 19,966,000 – compares to an estimated 18,250,000 homes last March. All told, FTTH networks pass approximately 17.4% of North American homes and connect to just under 6%.Meanwhile, Verizon’s announcement that it will slow its FTTH deployments has been offset by smaller carriers and municipalities, many of whom will scale their efforts as broadband stimulus money kicks in."All indications are that a large number of small and medium-sized telecoms and other broadband providers -- more than 750 by our count -- have either upgraded to FTTH or are in the process of doing so," said Joe Savage, outgoing president of the FTTH Council. "In addition, our earlier surveys show that the vast majority of the remaining telecoms are seriously considering going all-fiber in the next several years."Michael Render of RVA, who conducted the survey, noted that "the number of homes passed by FTTH networks has expanded by 100 times since the FTTH Council was founded nine years ago, with growth really beginning to accelerate in 2005."

FTTH in US

2010-09-16T12:54:00.000-04:00

SEPTEMBER 15, 2010 -- In his semi-annual State of the FTTH Union update, RVA Market Research’s Michael Render told attendees at the FTTH Conference in Las Vegas that 6.45 million households in North America receive services via fiber to the home (FTTH) networks. Render’s research, sponsored by the FTTH Council North America, also shows that FTTH infrastructure passes nearly 20 million North American homes.The 6.45 million connection figure represents a six-month increase of just under 650,000. The number of current homes passed -- 19,966,000 – compares to an estimated 18,250,000 homes last March. All told, FTTH networks pass approximately 17.4% of North American homes and connect to just under 6%. Meanwhile, Verizon’s announcement that it will slow its FTTH deployments has been offset by smaller carriers and municipalities, many of whom will scale their efforts as broadband stimulus money kicks in."All indications are that a large number of small and medium-sized telecoms and other broadband providers -- more than 750 by our count -- have either upgraded to FTTH or are in the process of doing so," said Joe Savage, outgoing president of the FTTH Council. "In addition, our earlier surveys show that the vast majority of the remaining telecoms are seriously considering going all-fiber in the next several years."Michael Render of RVA, who conducted the survey, noted that "the number of homes passed by FTTH networks has expanded by 100 times since the FTTH Council was founded nine years ago, with growth really beginning to accelerate in 2005."

Back in Business...for now.

2010-09-07T11:24:00.001-04:00

Australia's National Broadband Network (NBN), placed in limbo when national elections failed to create a clear majority government, is back on after the incumbent Labor Party won the backing of enough Green and independent members of Parliament to stay in power.
Labor and the independents who back the party now control 76 of the 150 seats in the Australian Parliament.
NBN Co., the company created to manage the NBN's construction, naturally welcomed the news. "The team at NBN Co has been working on business as usual in the post-election period, while limiting discretionary expenditure, extending the deadline for some tenders and putting the award of several tenders on hold," the company said in a press statement. "We will now work to restore deferred processes, including the recruitment of staff."
Alcatel-Lucent, which won a contact to supply GPON FTTH gear for the NBN, is undoubtedly happy as well.
According to ITNews of Australia, at least two of the critical members of Parliament cited the NBN as a factor in backing Labor. A deal between Labor and the independents covering uniform national wholesale prices for the NBN and priority infrastructure rollout in regional areas was crucial to gaining the independents' support, ITNews says.

Australia's NBN on hold

2010-08-24T11:56:00.000-04:00

The Sydney Morning Herald and Dow Jones Newswire reports that NBN Co., the organization administering the Australian Government's National Broadband Network, has put the project on hold after national elections in Australia failed to produce a clear majority in Parliament.
The incumbent Labor Government had launched the NBN at a projected cost of AUS$43 billion. However, the opposition Conservative Party offered a plan of its own, reduced both in scale and cost ($6.3 billion).
According to the two news organizations, NBN Co. issued a statement saying that it would not award any "significant" new contracts or issue "significant" new tenders. Existing operations will continue.
A copy of the announcement had not yet been posted on the NBN site at the time of this writing.
Alcatel-Lucent recently won a contract from NBN Co. worth at least AUS$70 million for GPON gear. Needless to say, the total value of that deal now becomes uncertain.

The Connector

2010-08-23T11:14:00.001-04:00

http://www.connector.com/

Verizon trial of fiber-optic network reaches nearly 1Gbit/sec.

2010-08-16T16:12:00.000-04:00

Verizon today said a fiber-optic field trial it conducted in June for a business customer in Taunton, Mass., delivered near gigabit-per-second speeds.
The customer received 925Mbit/sec. throughput to a server at its business location from a Verizon central office less than two miles away, Verizon officials said. Speeds of 800Mbit/sec. were recorded to regional speed test servers 400 miles away.
Verizon has reached higher speeds in laboratory tests using the gigabit passive optical network (GPON) switches and other gear developed by Motorola that Verizon has been installing for two years, but this is the first publicized field trial.
The nearly gigabit-per-second speeds could rival speeds expected in Google's "Think Big with a Gig" experimental fiber-optic network first announced in February that has drawn interest from more than 1,100 communities nationwide.
Google wants to set up a fiber network trial in one or more locations with 1Gbit/sec. connections to 50,000 to 500,000 people. Google is expected to announce the location by the end of the year.
The Verizon trial, however, is based on an existing network, a Verizon spokesman noted. "We are not competing with things [Google is] planning," said the spokesman, Philip Santoro. "They may be thinking about competing with things we already have. We have the network in place today."
The customer in the trial was not named. The trial was intended to demonstrate in a live network setting that Verizon's currently deployed FiOS gear can support higher-bandwidth services for 3DTV, desktop virtualization, remote storage and wireless backhaul without a major change to the network.
FiOS is offered at a speed of 50Mbit/sec. to business and residential customers. Verizon officials could not say when or even whether faster speeds like those in the Taunton field trial might be offered, or whether the additional capacity might be used by Verizon to ensure gradual increases in system capacity as more users and bandwidth-hungry applications tax the network.
The GPON platform is intended to go beyond the rating of the field trial -- up to 2.4Gbit/sec. downstream and 1.2Gbit/sec. upstream -- although such speeds have not been seen in the field using Verizon's network.
Vincent O'Byrne, director of Verizon's technology group, said in a statement that the trial demonstrated that the GPON platform can be used to progressively increase fiber-optic throughput capacity as needed by both residential and business customers.
Verizon did not describe the level of bandwidth to each individual user in the field trial.

Undersea Fiber Cable to Connect LA to Auckland

2010-08-05T16:08:00.001-04:00

AUKLAND, New Zealand—Pacific Fibre Limited, partnered with Pacnet, Asia’s leader in telecommunication services, recently announced plans to jointly build a subsea fiber optic cable between New Zealand, Australia, and the United States.The proposed plan for 8,450 miles of cable is expected to cost around $400 million and will connect Sydney, Auckland, and Los Angeles with 5.12 Terabits/sec of capacity initially, upgradable to over 12 Terabits/sec.Currently, poor bandwidth in New Zealand isn’t able to handle certain applications and prices for bandwidth paid by Australians and New Zealanders are high when compared internationally.According to Pacific Fibre’s website, the aim of the cable is "to make fast, inexpensive, [and] unlimited broadband a reality.” The companies will award the contract to the vendor to build the cable in the coming months.The new cable is expected to be ready for service in 2013.

Level 3 Expands Oprations in Boston

2010-06-03T11:39:00.000-04:00

BOSTON, Jun 03, 2010 -- Level 3 Communications, Inc. today announced that it has expanded its operations and is enhancing its local presence in Boston. This initiative reflects Level 3's ongoing commitment to enhancing its presence in local markets throughout the country, with the goal of providing mid-market enterprises with a world-class customer experience.
"It's encouraging to see Level 3 invest in Boston and bring local businesses competitive solutions for a broad range of communication services," said Brenda MacDonald, senior vice president of carrier operations for TNCI, Inc. "While much of the industry is focused on operational consolidation, Level 3's local approach demonstrates their commitment toward meeting their customers' region-specific needs."
In support of this local-expansion effort, Level 3 is growing and realigning its local workforce in Boston to combine a local presence, in-depth marketplace knowledge and broad expertise in the communications industry. Through a combination of its extensive backbone network, metro fiber-optic footprint, and a locally focused sales and customer support team, Level 3 provides greater opportunities for mid-market enterprises to take advantage of Level 3's broad portfolio of communications services.
"Boston is a unique market and one that is a crucial part of our local strategy," said Tracy Davis, Level 3's general manager for New England. "Offering industry expertise and a local marketplace knowledge gleaned from our on-the-ground support team, Level 3 is committed to continually improving the customer experience in Boston and providing high-quality communications services that offer a competitive alternative for local businesses."
The company plans to add capacity to the network in the region and expand the number of businesses that are directly connected to the Level 3 network. This expansion will provide mid-market enterprises with access to the full suite of Level 3 services and allow them to quickly and easily increase their bandwidth as business needs grow. The expansion of operations in Boston marks the continuation of a locally focused strategy that Level 3 launched successfully in mid-2009.

Mexico telco could spend $186 mln on fiber network Thu, May 27 2010 MEXICO CITY, May 27 (Reuters) - Mexico telco could spend $186 mln on fiber network

2010-05-30T08:48:00.002-04:00

US court rules against FCC on `net neutrality'

2010-04-06T11:13:00.001-04:00

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal appeals court has ruled that the Federal Communications Commission lacks the authority to require broadband providers to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing over their networks.
Tuesday's ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia is a big victory for Comcast Corp., the nation's largest cable company. It had challenged the FCC's authority to impose so called "net neutrality" obligations.
It marks a serious setback for the FCC, which needs authority to regulate the Internet in order to push ahead with key parts of its massive national broadband plan.

Telstra to Upgrade Melbournew to Sydney Link

2009-07-15T11:00:00.002-04:00

JULY 14, 2009 -- Telstra says it will upgrade the capacity of the Next IP network between Melbourne and Sydney to cope with a tenfold increase in network traffic volumes between the two cities.
Michael Rocca, group managing director, Telstra Networks & Services, said the upgrade will use Ericsson optical transmission technology to accommodate growing transmission demand on the inter-capital route.
"In the past five years, IP traffic on the inter-capital routes has grown tenfold and while this is not having any detrimental impact on our customers, it is imperative that we keep ahead of the surge in demand for the carriage of voice, data and video," Rocca said.
"Australian organizations are realizing the tremendous productivity benefits achievable with the Telstra IP network. Upon completion in March 2010, we expect these will be the fastest and highest-capacity transmission links available in Australia, providing four times the capacity available today and helping keep Telstra customers head and shoulders ahead above the rest for many years to come."
Demand on telecommunication networks is generally focused on capital cities as a result of greater population and the concentration of international voice and data links in those areas.
The upgrade will increase the capacity of Telstra's existing DWDM transmission technology from 10 to 40 Gbps and will use underlying optical fiber infrastructure without requiring major changes to the network.
Telstra will use Ericsson's Marconi MHL 3000 DWDM platform for the upgrade.

Biggest FTTH rollout ever

2009-05-13T17:28:00.000-04:00

http://www.dbcde.gov.au/communications_for_business/funding_programs__and__support/national_broadband_network/

Yikes

2009-02-03T12:35:00.001-05:00

ADC dials down outlook, plans more job cuts
Monday, February 2, 2009, 10:31am CST
Minneapolis
ADC Telecommunications Inc. on Monday lowered its first-quarter guidance and said it’s planning more layoffs in an effort to cut costs. The company's stock tumbled after the announcement.
The Eden Prairie-based company cut 350 jobs worldwide in October, including between 180 and 190 positions in Minnesota. ADC will announce how many additional jobs will be cut at a later date, a company spokesman said.
ADC, which makes equipment for the telecom industry, said it now expects revenue of between $240 million and $255 million in the first quarter, down from earlier projections of between $255 and $290 million. The slowing economy and a drop in customer spending prompted the company to lower its sales estimates, the firm said in a statement.
ADC now expects to record a loss of between 17 and 23 cents per share in the first quarter; previously, it projected a loss of between 5 and 17 cents per share.
Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect the company to report a loss of 2 cents per share and revenue of $274.9 million. Those estimates don’t include one-time charges; ADC’s projections include a non-cash amortization expense of 9 cents per share.
The company also said it has ended its $200 million line of credit, which it noted in a statement “has become increasingly costly to maintain.” It expects to end the quarter with more than $500 million in cash.
ADC will announce its first-quarter earnings on March 3. The company’s stock price was down nearly 30 percent in afternoon trading, slipping to $3.56 per share.

Of course they did, I once bought their stock!

2009-01-15T09:56:00.003-05:00

As per usual, I am the investing harbinger of demise. If I buy stock in your company, watch out, you will soon be bankrupt. As sure as my ex-girlfriends get fat after we break-up, your company will fail after I invest in you. I have the opposite of the Midas Touch. That's why I now pay someone to do my investing for me. Some of my past wise investing decisions include, the airline industry, HD DVD's, Segway, New Coke, Beta video tapes, zeppelins and the steam engine.

Nortel files for bankruptcy protection
JANUARY 14, 2009 -- Nortel Networks Corp. today announced that it, Nortel Networks Limited and certain of its other Canadian subsidiaries, will seek creditor protection under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA) in Canada. Additionally, certain of the Company's U.S. subsidiaries, including Nortel Networks Inc. and Nortel Networks Capital Corporation, have filed voluntary petitions in the United States under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, and certain of the Company's EMEA subsidiaries are expected to make consequential filings in Europe.
Nortel says it expects normal day-to-day operations to continue without interruption. Company representatives say they remain 100% focused on serving customers worldwide through continued R&D investments and support of their product portfolio to fulfill customer needs.
In a press release issued today, Nortel says it made this decision with the unanimous authorization of its Board of Directors after thorough consultation with its advisors and extensive consideration of all other alternatives. This process will allow Nortel to deal decisively with its cost and debt burden, to effectively restructure its operations, and to narrow its strategic focus in an effective and timely manner, claims the company.
The company commenced a process to turn around and transform Nortel in late 2005, and the company says it made important progress on a number of fronts. However, the global financial crisis and recession have compounded its financial challenges and directly impacted its ability to complete this transformation. Nortel is taking this action now, with a $2.4 billion cash position, to preserve its liquidity and fund operations during the restructuring process.
"Nortel must be put on a sound financial footing once and for all," contends Nortel president and CEO Mike Zafirovski. "These actions are imperative so that Nortel can build on its core strengths and become the highly focused and financially sound leader in the communications industry that its people, technology, and customer relationships show it ought to be. I am confident that the actions we're announcing today will be the fastest, most effective means to translate our improved operational efficiency, double-digit productivity, focused R&D, and technology leadership into long-term success," he maintains. "I want to reaffirm Nortel's dedication to delivering world-class solutions and services to customers."
The application under the CCAA will be heard later today by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. The voluntary petitions under Chapter 11 were filed with the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. Nortel expects to be in a position shortly to provide an update regarding the consequential filings by certain of its EMEA subsidiaries.
The company's affiliates in Asia, including LG Nortel, and in the Caribbean and Latin America, as well as the Nortel Government Solutions business, are not included in these proceedings and are expected to continue to operate in the ordinary course.In addition, the company will request the courts to impose certain restrictions on trading in the company's common shares and Nortel Networks Limited's preferred shares in order to preserve valuable tax assets in the United States. Trading restrictions, if imposed, would apply immediately to investors beneficially owning at least 4.75% of (i) the outstanding common shares of Nortel Networks Corporation or (ii) any series of preferred shares of Nortel Networks Limited. For these purposes, beneficial ownership of stock will be measured in accordance with special U.S. tax rules that, among other things, apply constructive ownership concepts and take into account indirect holdings. There will be no immediate trading restrictions imposed on debt securities of the company or its affiliates, but the company by this press release is advising debtholders that the courts may, at the company's request, impose certain trading restrictions at a later date.

Happy New Year?

2009-01-09T09:50:00.001-05:00

Pyramid: 1% growth for global telecom in 2009
JANUARY 9, 2009 -- Due to a grim economic outlook and substantial currency fluctuations, the telecom services market will generate $1.4 trillion in 2009, posting only 1% year-on-year growth compared with the 10-11% annual growth rates that have characterized previous years, according to a new report from Pyramid Research.
The global telecom market is expected to recover in 2010, however, driven by a combination of factors such as the increased availability of multiplay bundles and versatile, competitively priced devices, with emerging markets providing much-needed dynamism to the industry.
This new report, entitled "Global Telecom Services Revenue Forecast 2008-2013: Emerging Market Opportunities," delivers a five-year forecast for global telecom revenue by service, revealing that voice services will be hardest hit in 2009 while non-voice mobile applications and broadband Internet access are expected to remain robust. A contraction in the overall voice market of 3% in 2009 is projected, compared with a 6% expansion in 2008, while the data market, both fixed and mobile, will reach $411 billion in 2009, up 12% from 2008 levels.
"Mobile data will be the primary engine of growth, seeing revenue increase by 15% to $223 billion," notes Leslie Arathoon, vice president of research at Pyramid Research and co-author of the report. "The number of broadband accounts, including 3G mobile accounts, will more than double, going from the current 965 million to more than 2 billion by 2013. This will create an important target market for digital content, applications, and advertising dollars."
This report also provides telecom service revenue growth by region, indicating that emerging markets will remain dynamic throughout the forecast period. "Global mobile penetration now lies at 60%, a figure we forecast will climb to 84% by 2013, led by growth in India and China. These two markets will together add 829 million mobile subscriptions from 2009 to 2013, 44% of the world's total net additions during that period," adds Arathoon. "We also project that regional telecom service revenue in Central and Eastern Europe, Asia/Pacific, Africa, and the Middle East will see about 7% year-on-year growth, while the mature markets of North America and Western Europe are negatively affected by the deteriorated economic environment."

Swisscom selects Huber + Suhner's fiber management for FTTH project

2008-12-17T17:14:00.001-05:00

Swisscom selects Huber + Suhner's fiber management for FTTH project
DECEMBER 17, 2008 -- Swiss telecommunications company Swisscom has selected Huber + Suhner products and systems for its fiber-to-the-home deployment. Over the coming years, Huber + Suhner says it will supply fiber management systems for local exchanges to the Swiss market leader.
With currently more than 1.7 million fixed network broadband connections, Swisscom is a leading player in the growth market of broadband communication. Swisscom has used fiber-optic technology for many years, initially to connect its exchanges and later for business customers. By deciding to bring fiber-optic links into private households, the telecoms carrier is meeting the growing need of customers in the multimedia and telecommunications sectors for greater speed and convenience. This makes possible applications such as HDTV and teleworking and faster uploading and downloading of large quantities of data.
With its fiber-optic division, Huber + Suhner says it is a market leader in fiber-optic management and fiber-optic connectivity. Successes with innovative systems, connectors, and special cables for the rapidly growing FTTH domestic and international markets are the company's primary growth drivers, say Huber + Suhner representatives.
As a first step, Huber + Suhner will supply Swisscom with fully equipped, customer-specific "LISA" high-density fiber-optic management systems, initially for the exchanges in Basel, Geneva, and Zurich. Huber + Suhner also supplies cables to transport data from the switching station to the home on the basis of new, special fiber optics and low-loss connectors.
For Urs Kaufmann, CEO of the Huber + Suhner Group, this large order from Swisscom is "a great success in the domestic market, which underscores our leading position in the future-oriented growth market of broadband communication."

Economy Didn't Slow Verizon's FiOS

2008-11-17T10:05:00.000-05:00

America may be headed for a recession, but you couldn't tell from Verizon Communications' third-quarter results. The company added wireless users in the period and saw customers spending freely on pricey Internet services.
The company's investment in FiOS, its answer to competition from cable service providers that offer bundled communication packages, appeared to being paying off. During the quarter, Verizon Communications added 233,000 FiOS television customers and 225,000 Internet subscribers. The product uses fiber-optic network technology to offer accelerated Internet service and high-definition television.
Verizon's stock gained $2.75, or 11.0%, to $27.83, during Monday's afternoon trading session.
So far so good, but Verizon still might face headwinds from a decelerating economy. U.S. consumers have scaled back discretionary spending, and if the economy weakens could look for ways to cut their monthly bills. Some households have discontinued traditioanl landline services in favor of wireless.
Indeed, traditional phone line accounts fell in Verizon's third quarter, down 12.0% from the prior year. But the company's wireless segment, a joint venture with Vodafone Group, beat analysts' new-subscriber estimates with 1.5 million sign-ups. That was particularly impressive in light of AT&T's report that it added 2.0 million subscribers in the third quarter, despite its exclusive deal to market Apple's iPhone. There had been fears that AT&T would steal market share from Verizon, thanks to the Apple device.
Verizon's third-quarter earnings rose 31.5%, to $1.7 billion, or 59 cents share, from $1.3 billion, or 44 cents a share, in last year's comparable period. Operating earnings were 66 cents a share, meeting analysts' estimates. Sales climbed 4.0% during the quarter, to $24.75 billion, and narrowly beat the consensus $24.52 billion sales forecast.
Although investors have worried that Verizon might choose to scuttle its acquisition of Alltel because of the difficult credit market, Chief Executive Ivan Seidenberg said the company stands by the deal . The acquisition would make Verizon the largest wireless network in the world.

GPON sales up 77% in 2Q08, driven by Verizon's FiOS

2008-10-31T16:33:00.000-04:00

OCTOBER 31, 2008 -- The worldwide PON equipment market grew 17% to $486 million in 2Q08, thanks primarily to Verizon, whose FiOS build out prompted a huge increase in BPON ONT and GPON OLT shipments, reveals a new report from Infonetics Research.
The PON equipment market is driven by service provider investments in broadband access networks to deliver bandwidth-intensive services such as IPTV bundled with voice and high-speed Internet services.
Verizon's purchase of GPON OLTs from Alcatel-Lucent and Motorola led the GPON equipment segment to surge 77% sequentially in 2Q08, according to the report, "PON and FTTH Equipment and Subscribers."
"Though GPON growth is expected to be healthy across the board, some major vendors are dropping out of the race to focus their efforts and R&D resources on next-generation PON technologies like WDM-PON and 10G EPON," notes Jeff Heynen, directing analyst for IPTV at Infonetics Research. "The GPON vendor landscape was due for some contraction, and with vendors like Nokia Siemens and Tellabs abandoning GPON for WDM-PON, the big winners in the GPON market look to be Alcatel-Lucent, Huawei, Motorola, ZTE, and Ericsson," he reports.
Heynen added that Infonetics adjusted its PON revenue forecasts down based on conversations with service providers who are postponing fiber upgrades until they are confident subscriber uptake of ultra-broadband services will justify the expense associated with extending fiber to buildings and residences. Today's global economic climate solidifies their rationale for holding off on new investments. However, there are many service providers who had already committed budget to fiber upgrades, such as Verizon, NTT, KT, and Hanaro, who see fiber as a strategic advantage and who continue to aggressively roll out new fiber.
Other report highlights include the following:• Mitsubishi continues to lead the overall worldwide PON equipment market, although competitors continue to chip away at its lead, with Tellabs and Alcatel-Lucent now neck and neck for second position.• In 2Q08, Alcatel-Lucent retains first place in worldwide GPON revenue, and Motorola posts a 451% sequential jump in revenue, propelling it to second position--ahead of Huawei--for the first time.• PacketFront and Cisco are running neck and neck in the worldwide Ethernet FTTH equipment market, with PacketFront ahead by far for CPE and Cisco ahead by far for switches.• Between 1Q08 and 2Q08, worldwide BPON manufacturer revenue increased 25% and ports climbed 52%.• Worldwide BPON, EPON, and GPON subscribers are forecast to top 46 million in 2011.• The expense of WDM-PON systems is expected to be too high for most carriers in the early phases of the market, leading carriers to use WDM-PON for DSLAM backhaul applications, as opposed to FTTH deployments, until WDM-PON prices come down.
Infonetics' report tracks PON equipment revenue and ports, including BPON, EPON, GPON, WDM-PON, and OLTs and ONTs with FTTH vs. FTTB splits; Ethernet FTTH equipment (CPE vs. service provider); and total FTTH equipment (CPE vs. non-CPE). The report also tracks PON, POTS, Ethernet, and DSL ports; and PON, PON FTTH, and Ethernet FTTH subscribers.

Corning 2008Q3 Results

2008-10-29T11:15:00.001-04:00

CORNING, N.Y., Oct 29, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) --
Corning Incorporated today announced results for the third quarter 2008.
Third-Quarter Highlights
-- Sales were $1.56 billion, about even with last year's third quarter.
-- Earnings per share (EPS) were $0.49; including net special gains of $36 million or $0.03 per share.
-- Excluding special items, EPS was $0.46,* up 21% over last year's results, due in part to favorable exchange-rate movements.
-- Display Technologies' combined LCD glass volume, including Corning's wholly owned business and Samsung Corning Precision Glass Co., Ltd. (SCP), was up 2% sequentially and 18% year over year. Volume from Corning's wholly owned business decreased 10% sequentially and 2% year over year. Samsung Corning Precision's volume increased 12% sequentially and 38% year over year.
Fourth-Quarter Outlook Summary
-- Sales are expected in the range of $1.2 billion to $1.3 billion.
-- EPS before special items are expected in the range of $0.20 to $0.28.*
-- Combined LCD glass volume is expected to be down in the range of 10% to 20% sequentially, with the wholly owned business down 20% to 30% and SCP down 5% to 15%. Year over year the combined glass volume is expected to decrease by 2% to 13%
-- For the full year, combined LCD glass volume growth is expected to be 20% to 22%.

For more details go to http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Corning-Announces-Third-Quarter-Results/story.aspx?guid=%7B981773E1-21EC-4AF5-A6CD-860893899F26%7D

FCC chairman faces growing pressure to delay votes

2008-10-29T11:14:00.000-04:00

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly 75 members of Congress are urging the head of the Federal Communications Commission to delay next week's vote on a proposal to overhaul key pieces of telecommunications regulation, arguing that the matter should get public review.
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin wants to significantly reorder the complicated menu of fees that phone companies pay to connect calls with each other's networks. He advocates more uniform, lower rates.
The proposed changes are backed by the two largest phone companies, Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc. They argue that existing rules are outdated and based on obsolete regulatory distinctions.
But the plan faces opposition from a broad coalition of competing carriers and rural phone companies, which fear it could erode the money they get for completing phone calls to their subscribers. And consumer advocates warn that it could lead to higher phone bills — particularly for rural customers — as phone companies seek to recover lost access charges from other sources.
Martin is also seeking major changes to the $7 billion-plus Universal Service Fund, a federal program that subsidizes telecom service in rural and poor communities through a surcharge on phone bills. Among other things, Martin would require carriers to use Universal Service money to invest in broadband networks in parts of the country that lack high-speed Internet connections.
Martin, one of three Republicans on the five-member FCC, has scheduled a vote on these issues for Nov. 4. A spokesman, Robert Kenny, pointed out that the FCC faces a Nov. 5 deadline, imposed by a federal court, for reforming part of the complex access fee system.
In a letter sent this week, however, 61 House members called on the chairman to release the proposal for public review and comment for at least two months.
"The public deserves the opportunity to provide fully informed comments, and the commission stands to gain by understanding the positions of all parties interested in its potentially sweeping decision," the letter says. It was written by Virginia Democrat Rick Boucher and Nebraska Republican Lee Terry, who have sponsored legislation to reform the Universal Service Fund.
That sentiment was echoed in two other letters that lawmakers sent to Martin this week, including one signed by 10 senators who expressed concerns that the details of Martin's proposal could end up hindering the construction of rural broadband networks.
Kenny, Martin's spokesman, said the chairman intends to move ahead with next week's vote on his broad reform proposal. Kenny added that while the plan has not been put out for public comment in its current form, most of the main elements have been debated in Washington for years.
Kenny also insisted that the proposal will not necessarily lead to higher phone bills and will help expand high-speed Internet connections in underserved parts of the country.
"Chairman Martin continues to work with the other commissioners on what we know is a very complex and complicated proposal that we hope will bring meaningful reform for the benefit of consumers," Kenny said.
Kenny said Martin also intends to move ahead with a vote on another contentious item on the Nov. 4 agenda: a proposal to open up unused portions of the television airwaves known as "white spaces" to deliver wireless broadband services.
Public interest groups and many of the nation's biggest technology companies, including Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp., hope the plan will lead to universal, affordable broadband.
But the proposal has run into fierce opposition from the nation's big TV broadcasters, which argue using the fallow spectrum to deliver wireless Internet services could disrupt their over-the-air signals. Manufacturers and users of wireless microphones have also raised concerns about interference with audio systems at concerts and sporting events.
In recent days, a wide range of sports leagues, church leaders and performers — from Dolly Parton to Guns N' Roses — have written the FCC urging the vote to be delayed.

US FTTH Update

2008-10-22T09:18:00.001-04:00

FTTH Council: 3.76 million North American households connected
SEPTEMBER 25, 2008 -- The upgrading of North America's last mile networks with end-to-end fiber is continuing at a robust pace, with fiber to the home (FTTH) arriving at more than 1.6 million households over the past year, according to a study released this week by the Fiber-to-the-Home Council. The total number of FTTH subscribes in North America now stands at 3.76 million. The study, by RVA Market Research , pegged the annual growth rate for FTTH in North America at 76%, the highest of any country or region in the world. The updated deployment statistics were announced at the FTTH 2008 Conference & Expo, which is being held this week in Nashville, TN.
The study also shows FTTH networks now passing 13.8 million North American homes, up from 9.55 million a year ago. The number of homes receiving video services over FTTH more than doubled over the past year, from slightly more than one million in September 2007 to nearly 2.2 million today. Meanwhile, the overall "take rate"--the percentage of those offered FTTH service who decide to subscribe--went up for the fifth straight six-month period, and now stands at more than 30%. "This continued growth in the number of connections and in the take rate is evidence of what consumers think about fiber to the home--it is fast becoming the technology of choice for receiving high-bandwidth Internet and superior video services," contends Joe Savage, president of the FTTH Council. "In addition, we are continuing to see enormously high customer satisfaction rates for FTTH services when compared to other types of broadband and video providers." The study also found that average data download speeds for FTTH subscribers continued to rise--to 7 Mbits/sec from 5.2 Mbits/sec a year ago--as providers increased available bandwidth in their service offerings. This compares to a median real-time Internet download speed of 2.3 Mbits/sec among all Internet users, as determined by the Communications Workers of America in their recent Speed Matters survey of more than 230,000 people.
Mike Render of RVA LLC, who authored the study, notes that the sustained high growth rate for FTTH connections is disproving many of the claims that skeptics made about the technology just a few years ago.
"They said FTTH would never work for overbuilds, in rural areas, in multi-tenant buildings or in places where there was already competition to provide these services," he recalls. "They said no one would ever need or pay for 7 megabits of download speed. And now we are finding that those concerns are not panning out."

Verizon bets big on network infrastructure

2008-10-07T15:08:00.000-04:00

From Verizon CIO Shaygan Kheradpir's 38th floor apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan with panoramic views of the East River, I saw first-hand the fruits of the company's $23 billion gamble to build a new fiber network directly to customers' doorsteps and a glimpse into where the strategy will lead next.
Kheradpir had invited a handful of journalists to his swank pad to show off the latest enhancements to Verizon's Fios TV service. The new features, which include everything from new widgets for getting weather and local traffic to a specially designed ESPN fantasy football application to remote control of DVRs, are rolling out across Verizon's Fios footprint right now with New York, Verizon's largest market, expected to get the enhancements starting October 9th.
While its cable competitors look for ways to curb their customers' usage of their networks by either slowing down certain applications or metering usage, Verizon plans to spend about $23 billion through 2010 to take fiber directly into people's homes to actually increase the amount of bandwidth people consume. The company also recently spent $9 billion on 700Mhz spectrum in the Federal Communications Commission's auction, which it plans to use to build a new fourth-generation wireless broadband network, again with the hope that people will choose bandwidth-intensive applications.

Verizon plans to spend about $23 billion through 2010 to take fiber directly into people's homes.(Credit: Verizon)
Verizon's commitment to betting big on bandwidth could cement its dominance in the communications market for years to come. But these bets don't come cheap. And as network operators find themselves in tighter competition with Internet giants such as Google, they could end up simply becoming dumb pipe providers, competing on speeds and feeds rather than services.
There's no doubt that service providers are caught between a rock and a hard place. Not only must they compete with each other, but they also have to think differently and innovatively to compete against new Internet competitors, who are using the service providers' high-speed infrastructures to deliver competing voice and video services.
While other service providers, like AT&T and the cable companies, have tried to deliver new services and enhancements by incrementally upgrading their infrastructure, Verizon has gambled all its chips by spending billions of dollars on fiber infrastructure that it believes will future-proof its network.
Verizon's Kheradpir admitted that Verizon's fast fiber pipes will likely be used to deliver new applications and services that Verizon may never be able to monetize. But the super fast infrastructure also provides Verizon with a blank canvas that its own developers can use to create new services.
"The network that Verizon has created with Fios is a dream for software developers," he said. "It's what we all dreamed of when we were in school. It's basically an unlimited pipe that can be used to develop whatever you want."
The main thing the ultra-fast fiber network enables is the ability to deliver rich content, namely high-definition video. According to J.D. Power and Associates, the number of households that report viewing high-def programs has nearly doubled since 2007, reaching 55 percent this year.
Kheradpir also believes that HD doesn't stop with TV. People will increasingly want high-definition Web video and high-definition digital music. That's why Verizon is promising at least 100 HD channels as part of its Fios service in places like New York City. But high-definition content eats up bandwidth, making it difficult for many of Verizon's competitors to keep up with demand. Verizon's competitors are also introducing enhanced offerings. Time Warner Cable, which competes with Verizon in New York City and the surrounding area, is also pushing for 100 HD channels by the end of the year.
Still, Kheradpir believes Verizon is better positioned with its all-fiber network to stay ahead of the HD curve.
Building the network at homeAs home networks increasingly look more like corporate local area networks, Kheradpir also sees an opportunity for service providers to manage their networks. He calls this the "consumerization" of IT. The difference between networks in the home and in the office is that instead of shuttling corporate data back and forth, people are sharing digital pictures and music, watching high-definition video and using VoIP services to stay connected to family and friends. And this basic difference means that service providers have to think differently about serving these customers.
"IT in the corporate environment is all about improving efficiency," Kheradpir said. "But in the home, it's about improving quality of life."

Verizon CIO Shaygan Kheradpir(Credit: Verizon)
And that is where Kheradpir believes Verizon can add value. Not only can it provide the basic infrastructure, but it can build the applications that ride over this infrastructure to improve users' experiences. This means allowing people to access their digital content from wherever they are on whatever device they want, he explained. And because few people have IT managers living with them, it also means hiding the complexity and management of the technology in the network far from the end user.
Verizon has worked this concept into its latest Fios TV upgrade. Its new set-top boxes will automatically discover all connected devices whether they're wired or wireless, and it will allow people to view photos or video or listen to music from any device on the network. This means that you can share pictures from a PC hard drive on a computer. Eventually it could also allow people to listen to the digital music that's stored at home on their PC while on their cell phones.
"The consumer doesn't want to think about where they store their content," Kheradpir said. "Our view is that people should leave their pictures and music where it is. And we will extend the network to get it for them."
The latest version of Fios TV will also include remote DVR control. Initially, this feature will allow users to control their DVR from an Internet-connected PC. But the company also demonstrated how it can be done via a cell phone. Using a mobile Web site on phones such as the LG Voyager and the enV, subscribers will be able to set recording schedules, search for recorded shows, and enable parental controls.
In addition to needing someone to manage their home "IT" needs, Kheradpir believes that consumers want more personalized content. Again, a high-speed network can help facilitate this. For example, Verizon has added widgets to its latest Fios upgrade that allow third-party developers to create applications for personalized local weather, traffic, and horoscopes. One Verizon engineer even created a Facebook application so that people can access status updates on their TV screens.
Verizon has also included a "What's Hot" application that anonymously keeps track of what people are viewing to show people the most popular TV shows in their areas. Kheradpir said that Verizon is able to offer more personalized services because of the bi-directional nature of its network. Not only can Verizon broadcast content to its subscribers, but it can collect information and allow for individual interaction to provide consumers with a more personalized experience.
Seeing returnsSo far, Verizon's gamble appears to be paying off. In areas where it sells Fios TV, Verizon has been able to steal customers from cable and satellite providers. And as of the end of June this year, Verizon had increased its Fios TV penetration rate to 19.7 percent from 13.3 percent in 2007. In total, the company has 1.4 million Fios TV subscribers.
Verizon is also getting high marks from customers. In a recent J.D. Power and Associates survey, Verizon Fios TV ranked higher than cable or satellite in terms of customer satisfaction. Specifically, customers said Fios TV's picture clarity and programming exceeded their expectations. AT&T, which provides its U-Verse service, also got high marks for its IPTV offering.
Verizon's goal is to attract 4 million customers by 2010, giving it a market penetration of about 25 percent. And it hopes to attract about 7 million Fios Internet customers, for a penetration rate of 35 to 40 percent.
But Fios is just the beginning. Verizon is also in the early stages of planning its fourth-generation wireless network that will be used to deliver the connected experience to wireless devices. While Kheradpir admits it is still in the early days on the wireless front, he sees it as an important piece of the strategy.
"Wireless is a key lever," he said. "From the time we wake up until we go to bed we generally have a wireless device within reach. So it makes sense to extend this strategy to those devices as well."
Indeed, everyone in the communications sector sees wireless as the next major frontier. Verizon's cable competitors Comcast and Time Warner Cable have invested in the new Clearwire joint venture, which will combine Sprint Nextel's WiMax assets with Clearwire's to build a next generation wireless network. Google has also made various wireless investments. Verizon has clearly staked much of its future on a high-capacity wired infrastructure. But it remains to be seen how aggressively the company will bet on its next-generation wireless network.

FTTH Growth Stays on Track as Connections Rise too

2008-09-26T16:59:00.002-04:00

NASHVILLE - The upgrading of North America's last mile networks with end-to-end fiber is continuing at a robust pace, with fiber to the home (FTTH) arriving at more than 1.6 million households over the past year, bringing the total number of FTTH subscribers to 3.76 million, according to a study released today by the Fiber to the Home Council. The study, by RVA Market Research pegged the annual growth rate for fiber to the home in North America at 76 percent, the highest of any country or region in the world. The updated deployment statistics were announced at the FTTH 2008 Conference & Expo, which is being held this week in Nashville, Tennessee.The study also shows fiber to the home networks now passing 13.8 million North American homes, up from 9.55 million a year ago, and that the number of homes receiving video services over FTTH more than doubled over the past year, from slightly more than one million in September 2007 to nearly 2.2 million today. Meanwhile, the overall "take rate" - the percentage of those offered FTTH service who decide to subscribe - went up for the fifth straight six-month period, and now stands at more than 30 percent. "This continued growth in the number of connections and in the take rate is evidence of what consumers think about fiber to the home - it is fast becoming the technology of choice for receiving high-bandwidth Internet and superior video services," said Joe Savage, President of the FTTH Council. "In addition, we are continuing to see enormously high customer satisfaction rates for FTTH services when compared to other types of broadband and video providers." The study also found that average data download speeds for FTTH subscribers continued to rise - to 7 megabits per second from 5.2 Mbps a year ago - as providers increased available bandwidth in their service offerings. This compares to a median real-time Internet download speed of 2.3 Mbps among all Internet users, as determined by the Communications Workers of America in their recent Speed Matters survey of more than 230,000 people.Mike Render of RVA LLC, who authored the study, noted that the sustained high growth rate for FTTH connections is disproving many of the claims that skeptics made about the technology just a few years ago. "They said FTTH would never work for overbuilds, in rural areas, in multi-tenant buildings or in places where there was already competition to provide these services. They said no one would ever need or pay for 7 megabits of download speed. And now we are finding that those concerns are not panning out."

Fiber Basics

2008-09-18T09:58:00.006-04:00

I know you all know this already, but I found some videos about fiber basics that some of those just learning might be interetsed in.

Verizon Business Customers Benefit from TPE Subsea Network

2008-09-18T09:58:00.001-04:00

SEPTEMBER 17, 2008 -- Verizon Business today announced that it is first to market with the Trans-Pacific Express submarine cable network connecting the United States with mainland China, South Korea, and Taiwan. Verizon Business multinational customers with IP, data, and voice communications traffic moving onto this cable system, which is now active, will see immediate benefits, including additional capacity, greater physical diversity, reduced latency, improved performance, and seven-way mesh network diversity, says the carrier.
"Less than two years ago in Beijing, I told our customers we would deliver the network they needed by building the most direct and highest-capacity cable system between the United States and China/northern Asia," recalls Fred Briggs, executive vice president of Verizon Business operations and technology. "Today, our multinational customers can take full advantage of this very aggressive cable build. They can expand their businesses throughout northern Asia knowing their mission-critical traffic is riding on one of the most advanced submarine cable networks in the world."
Verizon Business teamed up with founding TPE Consortium members--China Telecom, China Netcom, China Unicom, Korea Telecom, and Chunghwa Telecom (Taiwan)--to build the TPE cable. The new 18,000-km (more than 11,000-mile) cable system uses the latest optical technology to provide greater capacity and high speeds to meet the dramatic increase in demand for IP, data, and voice communications in the growth countries. The new fiber-optic cable can support the equivalent of 77.5 million simultaneous phone calls, says Verizon, more than 60 times the overall capacity of the existing cable directly linking the United States and mainland China.
The operating capacity of the system--the largest ever built directly between the U.S. and mainland China, South Korea, and Taiwan--is 3.2 Tbits/sec, an increase of 25% over the original system design. With a minimum 80 wavelengths per fiber, TPE has the highest wave-density of any submarine cable in the world at this length. For the first time, individual customers can now access a cable system at wavelengths of up to 10 Gbits/sec directly from the U.S. to China, Korea, and Taiwan. In the next phase, the system will add links to Japan.
Verizon Business' Private IP and Private Line customers with traffic between the United States and China will be the first to see benefits across the network, says Verizon. One of the most sought-after benefits is reduced latency--the time it takes for data sent from its entry point in the network to reach its destination.
"When we designed this submarine cable system, we sought the shortest direct physical paths between locations," reports Ihab Tarazi, vice president of global network planning for Verizon Business. "This cable minimizes the physical distance for direct connectivity to China, South Korea, and Taiwan and provides route diversity away from Japan, where many other submarine cables land today."
Verizon Business customers using the Trans-Pacific Express cable network also will take advantage of additional investments to connect the system to the company's ultra-long-haul network in the U.S., extensions across Asia that provide end-to-end connectivity, and secured capacity for private IP customers in the Asia Pacific region.
In addition to more capacity, higher speeds and lower latency, the TPE system will provide more diversity of routes for customers using Pacific submarine cables, notes the carrier. Ever since a major earthquake occurred off the coast of Taiwan in December 2006, diversity has become one of the most important features customers require when purchasing capacity on undersea cables.
Customers also will take advantage of a network architecture design called meshing, which provides alternate paths for rerouting traffic in the event of a cable cut or network disruption. When a service interruption occurs and meshing is needed, the equipment housed in network buildings on land allow the rerouting of voice and data traffic within 50 to 100 milliseconds.
Verizon Business says it is the first to offer seven-way trans-oceanic mesh diversity across both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. The company's mesh network in northern Asia includes physical node diversity in major cities, coupled with backhaul and cable system diversity to provide superior survivability during network issues. Mesh nodes were recently installed in Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan. Japan was already included in the Pacific global mesh network.
"When you combine the complete TPE package we are offering our Verizon Business multinational customers, it's second to none in the industry," contends Tarazi.

Radhard Fiber Optic Cable

2008-09-16T17:49:00.001-04:00

A little something I'm interested in.
http://www.ptbmagazine.com/New_Products_0908.html

FTTE - Fiber to the Europe

2008-09-16T17:39:00.002-04:00

A little information about FTTH in Europe in preparation for ECOC next week (http://www.ecocexhibition.com/modules/serve.cgi)

European FTTH: A matter of perception
by Stephen M. Hardy
The global optical communications industry will meet next month in Brussels for the annual European Conference on Optical Communications (ECOC). As our "Analyst Corner" this month indicates, 2007 was a banner year for fiber-optic technology in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). The region accounted for 36% of a global market that had its best year since 2001, the last year of the infamous bubble.
Granted, by the time ECOC rolls around, the EMEA market may have succumbed to global economic slowdown. However, it seems to me that attendees at ECOC should still be buoyed by the market's recent success. This may mean that while executives at component/subsystem houses were downright grumpy at OFC/NFOEC, their ECOC counterparts with a large pull-through from EMEA will be merely rueful. Still, there's a lot of good news to be found in the region for proponents of optical communications.
That includes fiber to the home and fiber to the building or multiple dwelling unit (FTTH/B). Those of you hoping to catch up with EMEA's FTTH/B market at ECOC will no doubt find conflicting opinions about how well the region is doing in this area. That's because it seems that every positive step comes with a caveat.
For example, of the 14 markets where FTTH/B technology enjoys greater than 1% penetration rates, half are in Europe. However, no market enjoys a greater than 7.5% percent penetration rate, and each of these markets is small compared to the U.S. and many countries in Asia. Meanwhile, competitive pressures have led incumbents such as France Telecom to announce FTTH/B roll-outs—yet the planned deployments pale in comparison to those of Verizon and NTT. BT has announced its own FTTH plans. But these look more like AT&T's greenfield-only approach and won't be implemented unless there is "a supportive and enduring regulatory environment."
In short, proponents will no doubt tell attendees that FTTH/B progress is being made, but not fast enough to suit them.
If you're coming to ECOC from the United States, you'll probably decide that a lot of what is going on in EMEA FTTH/B, particularly in Europe, reminds you of home. Most of the early FTTH deployments in Europe have come from utilities, rural carriers, and municipalities. Like a lot of the high-profile municipal deployments in the United States—particularly iProvo and UTOPIA—city-sponsored FTTH/B models tend to favor open access. And while Active Ethernet and EPON support many of these municipal and rural deployments, incumbents have preferred GPON technology.
However, a closer look will reveal some telling differences. In particular, whereas the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) cleared the decks for U.S. incumbents by ruling that they wouldn't have to share FTTH/B infrastructure, sentiment in EMEA, particularly in Europe, appears to be running in the opposite direction. I say "appears" because while we're discussing the European market as if it were a single entity, it of course comprises multiple countries, each of which has its own regulatory authority. France's regulator appears set on equal access for all competitors when it comes to FTTH/B; meanwhile, regulatory authorities in Germany gave their support to Deutsche Telekom when the European Commission pressured the carrier to open its lines to competitors. BT, as its demand for favorable conditions indicates, has now put pressure on the UK's regulators to play along or risk the impression that it will stand in the way of high-speed broadband reaching more of the nation's consumers.
The failure of European Commissioner Viviane Reding to push through her vision of a pan-European regulatory authority similar to the FCC means that, for now anyway, the regulatory climate for FTTH/B in Europe will remain checkered. Alternative plans to reform European Union telecom regulations are expected to be voted on in September. These involve the adoption of the concept of "functional separation," in which services are treated separately from the infrastructure on which they ride—to the point of forcing carriers to set up separate business units for each. The idea, proponents say, is to create a climate where the infrastructure business units don't have an economic incentive to discriminate against their wholesale customers, even if they compete against the business unit's services sibling.
Whether this plan goes through—and how the plan will be implemented in each country—is the biggest question mark that hangs over FTTH/B in EMEA. So, in the end, when you ask a local attendee at ECOC how FTTH/B is going in the region, how they feel about this plan may be the most influential factor coloring their perception.

Check out this Widget for good fiber optic news...

2008-09-15T20:21:00.001-04:00

http://www.widgetbox.com/widget/fiber-optic-news

Fiber to the Houseboat

2008-09-08T09:35:00.003-04:00

From the LightWave Blog http://www.pennwellblogs.com/lw/

September 5, 2008
Posted by Meghan Fuller Hanna

Several days ago, I received an email from Draka touting "the world's first fiber to the houseboat." It seems the company has developed a new type of optical connector that allows houseboat owners to physically connect to Amsterdam's CityNet fiber-optic network upon mooring and disconnect whenever a trip is necessary.

Intrigued, I immediately asked for more information. Unfortunately, the lead engineer on the project is currently on vacation, but I've been in email communication with a Draka spokesperson, who provided a few additional details.

As part of the Amsterdam CityNet broadband project, Draka was challenged to develop a connector to meet the unique requirements of FTTH customers living on houseboats. Not an easy task, as the Draka spokesperson noted. These houseboats are mobile; now and then, they go sailing on the Ijsselmeer, and sometimes they must sail to shipyards for maintenance. (For the record, the Netherlands Board of Tourism & Conventions (NBTC) reports that there are some 2,500 houseboats docked in the city of Amsterdam.)

A standard, fixed optical fiber connection for houseboat applications was obviously out of the question. Instead, a fiber-to-the-houseboat application requires an optical connection that is robust enough for the houseboat owners themselves to connect and disconnect. Moreover, standard connectors are sensitive to dirt and dust, so a fiber-to-the-houseboat-optimized optical connector would have to be easy to clean and dry. (Draka tells me the connector it has developed can be dropped into the water.)

Writes the Draka spokesperson, "Trials proved that with minor modifications, a very robust beam connector originally developed for military applications is ideally suited for houseboat applications. It can be cleaned easily and has good transmission characteristics."To underscore the viability of the new connector, Draka released this photo of Oliver Ax, proud owner of the world's first fiber-connected houseboat.

"I now have ultra-fast Internet, TV, and telephone connection through one single cable," reports Ax, who says he has always been interested in technology and is delighted with the new services provided by GNA (Glasvezelnet Amsterdam) and local Internet provider Alice. Fiber-to-the-houseboat. Kinda makes you wonder what's next. Fiber-to-the-RV? What about fiber-to-the-car? Maybe some day, we'll be able to plug into a fiber connection while we're waiting for our electric cars to charge. In the meantime, anyone else have any cool "Fiber to the . . . ." stories?

FTEH?!?!?

2008-08-27T09:21:00.001-04:00

I found this while doing some research on Dubai. Turning "the" into "every."

FTTH will become FTEH (Fibre to Every Home) by 2010, predicts Aspen Optics

By Michael Schwartz

15 Jul 2008 at 09:33

Dubai: FTTH (Fiber to the Home) will soon become FTEH (Fiber to Every Home), and FTTO (Fiber to the Office) will also become FTEO (Fiber to Every Office) as standard for new construction in many developed countries by 2010. Aspen Optics, which has made this prediction, will be speeding up expansion in international markets to hasten FTEH.

Aspen Optics is a fibre connectivity products provider for global telecom operators and system integrators. There are obvious trends in the market to support the proposition of “Fiber to Every Home” in many countries. In Dubai, a city well up with innovation, nearly all residential and commercial properties under construction now by leading developers are fibre-ready.

The first FTTH network project in the UAE went live in September 2002, serving subscribers within Emaar Properties developments such as Dubai Marina, the Arabian Ranches, and Emirates Lakes. Dubai may probably become the fastest city in the world to implement FTEH for all new property construction. As an example, the Burj Dubai, being the world's tallest tower, is likely to contain the world’s longest fibre cables within the building, providing Fiber to Every Premise (FTEP).

The increasing demand for high-speed broadband in commercial, industrial and medical applications is pushing the use of fibre instead of copper to support mission critical network connection. The phrasing out of analogue TV to be replaced by IPTV and the popularity of HDTV form key factors to make FTEH a necessary reality.

Etisalat, Saudi Telecom Company and Algerie Telecom in the MEA region, along with France Telecom, Deutsche Telekom and Telefónica in Europe, are some of the leading operators heading up the promotion of fibre networks in the residential and enterprise markets. Fibre networking in the telecoms domain has long been supporting the global IDD connection. Fibre cable is now extending from underground and from the oceans to every building and every premise. According to Aspen Optics, broadband connection through fibre is actually faster and more cost-effective than copper cable and any other means of transmission.

FTTH - Fast to the Hospital(?)

2008-08-26T09:27:00.003-04:00

Group questions safety of Verizon product
Common Cause says problems found during inspection of FiOS systems require state action

ALBANY -- The watchdog group Common Cause is asking state regulators to reconsider Verizon's cable TV license for New York City after state inspectors found potential safety hazards with its FiOS fiber-optic systems.

The state Public Service Commission approved Verizon's franchise agreement with the city last month, calling it a "sure-fire win for consumers in New York City."

But Common Cause and three other consumer advocacy organizations are challenging the decision and want the PSC to temporarily freeze Verizon's rollout of FiOS TV, a product that competes directly with cable and satellite companies.

Routine inspections found that a "high proportion" of FiOS installations around the state failed to adhere to the National Electrical Code and were not properly grounded, according to the PSC. Verizon has filed a plan with the agency to inspect past installations and make sure new ones are checked by a quality assurance team.

"Verizon should not be permitted to benefit from its creation of a safety hazard," Common Cause said in an Aug. 14 petition filed with the PSC, which oversees utilities, telephone companies and cable TV firms.

Verizon has been rapidly rolling out FiOS across the state, first offering phone and Internet service. The TV service has been deployed more slowly, since negotiating franchise agreements in every municipality as required under state law is expensive and time-consuming.

In the Capital Region, FiOS has been deployed in Bethlehem, Colonie and Guilderland, but TV is not offered yet.

"We believe this petition is without merit," Verizon spokesman John Bonomo said in an e-mail Monday when asked about the Common Cause filing. "And we will not speculate as to what it would mean if it had any merit. This has been filed by a group that has stood in the way of progress, and opposed our entry into the NYC market every step of the way. New Yorkers are enjoying the benefits of TV choice and competition, and a state-of-the-art network."

Bonomo has said previously that Verizon is working with the PSC on the matter and is confident its installation procedures are in compliance. After more than four years of installing the systems, there have been no safety problems, he said.

On Monday, Chris Keeley, associate director for Common Cause New York, said his group believes the PSC should have waited to vote on the New York City cable franchise until there was more discussion about the installation concerns.

"The public didn't have a chance to review it," Keeley said. "We have some serious problems with how the process works. There's a lot of implications here."

Keeley pointed out that one of the five PSC commissioners, Patricia Acampora, voted against granting Verizon the franchise specifically over the FiOS installation issue.

In a written dissent, Acampora said she received Verizon's remediation plan on July 15, the day before the monthly meeting. Such dissents are rare.

"I did not have enough time to properly evaluate it, and I do not believe customers are receiving proper notification," Acampora wrote. "Verizon should remedy this problem before moving
forward. Competition is important to all New Yorkers, but at what price?"

Press Release - SENKO

2008-08-20T09:54:00.003-04:00

If your company would like to post a press release here and it is interesting and relevant to the field of fiber optics, please feel free to email it to me.

Here is one from SENKO Advanced Components.

Date: August 2008

Product: XP Fit Plus Field Assembly Connector

Just released Senko Advanced Components announces their solution to time consuming field installation with the introduction of the new XP Fit Plus Field Assembly Connector.

The XP Fit Plus is a pre-polished, pre-assembled connector compatible with the standard SC connector that uses index matching gel. Instead of epoxy, an internal mechanical grip, gently but effectively holds the fiber in place and can be installed in under two minutes. Without polishing or adhesives, the XP Fit Plus makes on site installations quick and easy, diminishing the need for epoxy curing and hand polishing at the work site.

The XP Fit Plus comes with an assembly jig and fiber holder for 900µm tight buffered fiber which makes for an accurate alignment and fiber cleave when terminating the connector. Following the guides on the assembling jig and fiber holder, assembly is effortless. Once the fiber is pushed into the connector and a click is heard, the job is complete and the connector is ready for use in CATV, Telecommunication networks, multimedia, and some FTTX applications.

SENKO also sells a complete tool set that includes everything you will need on site to use and install our XP Fit Plus Field Assembly Connector. The tool kit QST-02 includes a cleaver tool, fiber stripper, and cleaning materials. For more information on our products please visit our website at www.senko.com/store.

SENKO Advanced Components develops, manufactures, markets, and distributes over 1000 fiber optic products for the telecom and datacom industries worldwide. An ISO-9001 approved company, SENKO® is able to provide multinational corporations with the technical expertise to liaise with engineers, and the manufacturing flexibility to develop custom products for the ever growing high tech industry. Many of our products were created to resolve a specific design challenge faced by our customers. We offer one of the industry’s largest product portfolios, and our quality is second to none.

For more information on this product, call 1-888-32-SENKO or visit http://www.senko.com/.

For more information on this press release, please contact:

Sarah Norton
Marketing Coordinator
SENKO Advanced Components, Inc.
225 Cedar Hill Street
Marlboro, MA 01751
T: +1-858-623-3300
F: +1-858-623-3303
E: snorton@senko.com

Who Makes What: GPON

2008-08-19T11:49:00.003-04:00

A Good list of who makes what GPON equipment. I imagine this is a very valuable list for companies selling to the GPON market, but then again if your sales people are good, they should know this list already. Nevertheless, it is the most viewed story on lightreading.

http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=155848

Sign of the Times

2008-08-18T22:28:00.003-04:00

You know the economy is bad when people are stealing fiber optic cable...

Thieves Steal Fiber Optic Cable & Create $10,000 In Damages

By KBJR News 1

Story Published: Aug 11, 2008 at 6:23 PM CDT

Superior police officers are investigating a theft at Conner's Point.

Monday morning officers were called there after someone stole 200 feet of fiber optic cable that caused $10,000 in damages and some Century Tel customers to be without phone, internet, and television services for some time.

A Century Tel employee witnessed three people fleeing from the area; two of whom stopped to role a boulder onto the road so they could not be followed.

One suspect is described as a white male in his 40's with short gray hair, wearing a light blue, button-up shirt and blue jeans.

The other two were described as a male in his mid 20's with wavy blonde hair, wearing a white t-shirt and jeans and a woman with brown hair.

They fled in an older white or cream colored ford F-150 pickup truck with a brown trim stripe on the bottom.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Superior Police Department.

Fiber Optics for Wireless

2008-08-18T11:46:00.002-04:00

Interesting article on my new favorite topic - Fiber under the sea.

Can Undersea Optic Cables Presage a Boom?
Communications links among countries are like transportation routes in the past, opening up new territories to trade and an economic upsurge
by Om Malik

One thing I've learned about the optical network business, having followed it for more than a decade, is that the boom and bust cycles of the business often mask patterns that have long-term implications. The overbuilding of U.S. networks in the 1990s foretold a bust in the telecom industry. The buying up of bankrupt carriers' assets indicated the rise of new players, including Google, which has built a fearsome infrastructure. These days, all the excitement in the optical business is around new undersea cables being laid (or planned), bridging previously unconnected parts of the world. These cables are, in fact, the early warning signs of a coming economic boom.
Let me explain. In the 1990s, we saw a grotesque number of cables laid under the Atlantic and Pacific, connecting the U.S. with Japan, parts of Asia Pacific, and Europe. Those three regions went through an unprecedented boom, much of it inspired by technological changes that brought millions of people to the Internet. The boom, also inspired by deregulation of the telecom infrastructures in those countries, led to further spending on such communications as wireless phone calls and the high-speed Web. Unfortunately, the demand (captured quite well by bandwidth provider Global Crossing (in the early days) led to overbuilding, oversupply—and eventually a bust.
A similar scenario is now playing out in the Trans-Pacific Region, where cables are being built rapidly, and the bandwidth capacity on existing cables is being doubled. Many more cables under construction will connect with India and China, both of which are going through their own economic booms. According to the World Bank, China is the world's second-largest economy, and India claims the fourth spot. These countries have become economic hubs—not only buying but also selling to the outside world. And a key ingredient of trade is the ability to communicate, which in turn requires the large amount of capacity that can come only with undersea fiber cables.

Connecting Up Africa
The latest such effort is Seacom, a $650 million, 15,000km cable connecting East Africa with Asia and Europe. It is expected to be completed next June and provide 1.28 terabits per second of network capacity. This is just tip of the iceberg. According to TeleGeography, a research firm that tracks the global broadband business, 12 cables either in planning stages or under construction will connect Africa to the rest of the planet. Those connections will have a theoretical capacity of more than 13 terabits per second, and construction is estimated to cost more than $3 billion.
Why so much connectivity? After all, PC penetration is abysmally low in Africa. The answer is cell phones. At the beginning of 2008, the continent had a quarter of a billion mobile subscribers, according to the International Telecommunications Union, and Portio Research expects the number to increase to 378 million by 2011. Local companies are furiously building out networks, and by all indications, overall market penetration is going to increase from the 28% mark reported at the start of this year. Cell phones require networks to transfer calls between countries, so there is a need for networks to circle the continent—or at least countries where demand is greatest, such as Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa.
In the recent past, India went through a similar cycle, in which a spurt in mobile sales acted as a catalyst for the overall economy. Phone calls provide the vital connections for trade to flourish in areas hitherto unconnected. Something similar is happening in Africa, where mobile banking has emerged as a facilitator of cross-border trade.
You can see a similar scenario set to play out in other parts of the world. About five cables on the drawing board or under construction will connect Cambodia, Bangladesh, Vietnam, and some of the smaller countries in Asia. All these countries are going through an economic upsurge and are becoming part of the global economic system.
This leads me to my conclusion: Building new cables is the equivalent to adding new roads, new shipping lanes, or flights. The undersea fibers of today are what sea trading routes were in the past—an indicator of future economic activity and a subsequent boom.

Underwater

2008-08-17T21:51:00.003-04:00

After visiting the Tyco plant in Portsmouth, NH earlier this year. I now find this stuff fascinating. What an amazing use of fiber and the facility is absolutely humongous. What a large scale operation.

http://thecabledirectory.com/newsdetails.asp?id=6684

He's Baack!

2008-08-17T21:42:00.002-04:00

Sorry it has been a crazy several months, but I am back and ready to blog you with the latest and greatest fiber optic related news. Starting tomorrow I will be reconvening with the business of bringing you the latest in fiber optic news and will be branching out from FTTH and GPON to military and other interesting (I almost typed 'exciting') uses of fiber technology.

SteveO

Goodbye SENKO

2008-02-05T10:50:00.000-05:00

Well, it was a good run, but I left SENKO Advanced Components on Jan 31, 2008. Goodbye and good luck.

Customer Premise - The Forgotten Piece of the Puzzle

2007-11-11T20:59:00.000-05:00

From a company in MN whose specialty is the last 10 ft of FTTx networks and the transition to the new platform.

--------------------------------

The field work is complete with the fiber installed and spliced. The CO equipment is ready and the vendor has provided training for key staff. Now it is time to start moving customers to the new network. The question is how to best implement this portion of the project.

There have been many improvements enabling service providers to streamline their deployments and cut installation costs. Pre-connectorized drops and advances in premise splicing equipment have made the installation process manageable for field personnel.

What has been overlooked with most of the engineering plans and requests for proposal is the customer premise.

The average customer with POTS and maybe DSL takes for granted that when they pick up their phone or turn on their computer they will have service. They will question why you are fixing something that is not broke! While a portion of your customer base is knowledgeable of broadband and will be awaiting the upgrade most will need to be educated on the benefits of your new network.

The vast majority of customers I have encountered had little or no knowledge of why they needed to upgrade or what the benefits would be for them. They were asked to sign a permit to allow the drop to be installed and equipment placed on their home.

The next contact they had was a customer service person calling to schedule the appointment for transition to the new platform.

Customers with POTS only don’t understand the need to install the UPS and associated power cable to support a service they already have that is working.

Installation of the UPS inside the premise were power is available and the location is acceptable to the home owner is a challenge with almost every residence.

DSL customers want higher speed and reliability but many times will need the internal wiring to their computer or router upgraded to support the advanced services.

Adding video to this equation be it RF or IP can further complicate the deployment.

You may need to qualify the existing customer wiring and update or replace connectors and or passives. When deploying IP based solutions will you use the existing coax and media converters or run new cat5 cable? When a CPE is used it will need to be integrated into the customers existing home entertainment equipment.

With all these issues to consider the ultimate challenge is getting into the customer premise to begin with.

Scheduling installations that will work into your customers schedule as well as the schedule of needed support staff at the CO can be painstaking.

To the customer this is an inconvenience and the time allotted for the appointment difficult to determine due to the number of unknown factors.

Educating your customers on what will take place and the benefits to them will reduce friction for both parties. I have been involved in many deployments across the country and have seen several approaches to these issues. Town meetings have been used in cooperatives that outlined the project with updates via news letters. Direct mailing to customers explaining the project with a hotline for questions is another method utilized by service providers.

When the time comes to activate the premise network customer service is crucial. The wiring needs to be done in a manner that is acceptable to the home owner and within NEC and or RUS guidelines. The installation staff must be knowledgeable of the equipment and capable of activating all services in one visit and in a timely manner. When installation is complete the customer must have services that are comparable to or better than what they had on the copper network. Your business case will determine the pace of the upgrade and whether to utilize in-house staff contractors or both.

Hiring additional staff to expedite the rollout of new services is one answer but requires upfront expenditures for vehicles, tools and training. Then once the upgrade is complete the inherent lower maintenance of fiber networks will require less staff in the long term.

Cable companies have used contract installers for many years to fill the inevitable peaks and valleys of the work flow associated with their industry. Most premise contractors today are required to be skilled in triple play installations.

Whatever route is taken the installation technician is many times the only direct contact your customers will ever have with your company. They need to present themselves in a professional manner and extend the values of your company while being able to produce a quality installation.

The bottom line is not to alienate your customers in this process and lose them to your competitors. By providing the best possible customer service you will be able to keep and grow your customer base.

Patrick McNelis

Director of Field Service

PONtech Corp

www.pontechcorp.com

Broadbandtrends: FTTH systems revenue peaks in 2009

2007-10-22T17:05:00.000-04:00

OCTOBER 22, 2007 -- The global FTTH market is currently entering a period of growth that will peak in 2009, says market research and analysis firm broadbandtrends in its recently published report, FTTH Equipment Market Begins to "See the Light."

The growth comes as an increasing number of Tier 1 operators across Asia Pacific, EMEA, and North America deploy FTTH networks on a large scale. Additionally, demand for higher bandwidth (particularly in support of multi-stream HDTV IPTV video services), strong competition from cable and alternative operators, escalating costs to maintain copper infrastructure, continuing innovations and cost reductions in optical infrastructure, increasing FTTH interoperability activity, as well as the ability to converge all services onto a single network, are helping to reinforce the attractiveness of FTTH for many operators.

As shown in the figure, PON systems will experience the strongest growth and account for greater than 85 percent of total FTTH systems revenue throughout the forecast period. At the present time, total FTTH systems revenue is expected to reach its peak value during 2009 before experiencing downward pressure, primarily due to declining price points.

Major report highlights include:

Global FTTH systems revenue is expected to reach its peak value of $3.0 billion in 2009.
PON systems revenue will dominate the global FTTH market throughout the forecast period.
GPON will overtake EPON revenue by 2009 and shipments in 2010.
Asia Pacific will consume the largest portion of FTTH equipment through 2011, when North America takes over.
North America's share of FTTH subscribers will grow from 10 percent in 2006 to 22 percent by 2012.
Nearly 170 million homes will be passed by FTTH by 2012.

If It's Good Enough For TRUMP...

2007-10-18T13:29:00.000-04:00

Two of Donald Trump's Super-Luxurious Buildings to Get Verizon's Super-Fast FiOS Internet Connections

Residents of The Trump World Tower at United Nations Plaza and Trump Park Avenue Will Enjoy the Most Advanced, Fiber-Powered Technology and Ability to Surf the Internet at Speeds of Up to 50 MbpsTrump...

By PR Newswire

NEW YORK, Oct. 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Residents of The Trump World Tower at United Nations Plaza and Trump Park Avenue have always enjoyed the latest amenities. Now they'll have the most advanced communications available when Verizon turns on its FiOS Internet service at the two buildings.

Trump Organization Chairman and President Donald J. Trump said, "Trump properties are known for offering the finest in both services and amenities. Having Verizon FiOS services delivered on fiber optics to my buildings continues that high standard of excellence I demand. We know our residents will appreciate our foresight in getting them the best in telecommunications services from Verizon. I'm working with Verizon to bring FiOS to all of my properties."

Donald Trump and Verizon are exploring which other Trump properties can be served by FiOS. Verizon offers FiOS services in parts of 16 states.

Trump Organization Chief Operating Officer Matthew Calamari said, "We never had a second thought about having Verizon FiOS services installed in the buildings.

"At Trump Properties we provide super-luxurious accommodations and the latest technology to serve our residents," said Calamari. "When we learned that there's an even more advanced network in the marketplace that can deliver the fastest Internet connections, we wanted to bring it immediately to our residents. It's technology that we believe will support future technologies our residents will adopt."

The plans for FiOS at The Trump World Tower at United Nations Plaza (845 United Nations Plaza) and Trump Park Avenue (502 Park Ave.) reflect the competitive advantage Verizon's fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) network offers developers in marketing their properties.

Vice President of Verizon Enhanced Communities Eric Cevis said, "We are working as fast as we can to bring FiOS Internet services to residents in New York City. Residents at these two Trump properties, along with consumers who live in other parts of the five boroughs where FiOS Internet is available, will truly be amazed when they surf the Internet or download feature films with FiOS. We'll work with the Trump team to get FiOS to as many properties as we can."

At 50 Mbps, downloading a 1.2 GB (gigabyte), or 90-minute, standard- definition movie takes only 3.2 minutes.

Cevis also noted that FiOS TV, Verizon's feature-rich service, could be made available to the two Trump properties and elsewhere in the city once a local video franchise is approved. In New York, cable TV service providers are required by law to negotiate franchises with municipalities they hope to serve.

Verizon's FiOS Internet service in New York offers download speeds of up to 10, 20 and 50 Mbps and upload speeds of up to 5 Mbps. Verizon is constructing its all-fiber-optic network throughout the state. Currently, Verizon offers FiOS Internet service in many parts of the five boroughs of New York and elsewhere throughout the state. FiOS TV service is available on Long Island and in Westchester and Rockland counties.

The Trump World Tower at United Nations Plaza is the tallest residential complex in the Western Hemisphere. It offers over-sized condominium residences and penthouses on 90 floors -- a total of 376 living units. Trump Park Avenue, the former Delmonico Hotel, offers residences from one to seven bedrooms, including full-floor apartments, an extraordinary duplex and penthouses on 35 floors. Both Trump properties offer residents a fitness center, valet and laundry service, and more.

FiOS Internet was named to the top five of PC World Magazine's 100 Best Products of 2007 - a roster of what the magazine called "the finest products and services of the past 12 months," selected "based on exemplary design, features, performance and innovation." Readers of PC World and Computerworld magazines recently ranked FiOS Internet No. 1, with top scores across the board in overall satisfaction, connection reliability, download and upload speeds, customer service, and technical support. Additionally, Verizon is the only major telecom company whose network has earned the certification of the independent Fiber to the Home Council for providing fiber all the way to customers' homes.

For more information about The Trump World Tower at United Nations Plaza, visit www.trumpworldtower.com; for more information about Trump Park Avenue, visit www.trumpparkavenue.com.

Fios is catching on in Dallas and nationwide, Verizon exec says

2007-10-12T13:36:00.001-04:00

More than 150,000 Dallas-area homes are now plugged into Verizon's fiber-optic Internet service, Verizon's chief technology officer said Wednesday

And more than 100,000 subscribe to the company's fiber-optic television service, Mark Wegleitner said in an interview after his keynote speech at the Telephony Live conference in Dallas.

"Things are going very well down here with Fios," Mr. Wegleitner said.

But while Fios got its start in the Dallas area – Keller, specifically – the technology is quickly spreading nationwide.

Roughly 9 million American households will be able to sign up for Fios by the end of the year, and that number is expected to double by 2011.

The service is available to about 400,000 homes in the Dallas area.

Verizon had about 1.1 million Fios Internet customers nationwide as of June 30, an increase of 203,000 since the first quarter of the year.

Fios TV customers totaled more than 515,000 at the end of June, an increase of 167,000.

Verizon also announced Wednesday that it has applied to make its video service available to an additional 15,000 homes in Far North Dallas and North Grand Prairie.

Fios is one of Verizon's biggest bets, as the company is investing nearly $23 billion between 2004 and 2010 in creating an ultrahigh-speed network that is designed to last two decades or more.

For example, some employees are already testing in their homes Fios connections with download at speeds as fast as 100 megabits per second, whereas most home broadband Internet connections in the U.S. now are 5 megabits per second or less.

And it's a bet that, so far, other television, telephone and Internet providers have declined to copy by building their own to-the-home fiber networks, although AT&T may be coming closest with its U-Verse system.

Mr. Wegleitner said the investment will pay off, though, and said Verizon expects to benefit from laying the groundwork for the bandwidth-intensive applications of the future, from high-definition video to playing massive, online video and computer games.

Here are some excerpts from the interview.

Why is Fios important to Verizon?

"The consumer area is extremely important to us. The movement of that market to broadband at the current rate is unprecedented. What we've done with Fios is build a vehicle out there where we can provide services to feed that hunger for those broadband applications.

"It's a platform on which we can provide any number of services in the voice, video, data and wireless domain. That's why we picked Fios. It was a tough decision, because it's a lot of money. But on the other hand, it's the platform that can take us into the next decade."

With the download speeds currently available on Fios, is the goal to make the Fios TV offering eventually a pure IPTV technology, where consumers can just download any show they want at any time rather than having to adhere to a network schedule?

"I may be a bit of a contrarian on this, because it's very easy to jump on the bandwagon and say it's all going to be viewing on demand and time-shifted programming. But the fact of the matter is, there are still two very important things out there today that do have a time component to them, and that's news and sports. So if you're going to do news and sports, you're probably into something akin to broadcasting.

"The other thing is, and this is where my contrarian side probably kicks in, I think there are social events built around TV. This is just a cultural thing. When you get to the office on Friday morning, there are a number of people who probably want to talk about the show right then. They saw it as soon as it was available, and they're excited about what happened, and they want to discuss it around the water cooler."

Right now, the fastest available Fios Internet connection is 50 megabits per second in some cities (30 megabits per second in the Dallas area). When will see 100-megabit-per-second connections?

"We're already testing 100-megabit-per-second service to a couple of employees. It works fine. It doesn't mean we're going to go there right away [as a commercial offering], because there aren't very many applications out there right now that could use 100 megabits per second. But the nice thing about this technology is it gives us the headroom for the things we see coming."

Will the average consumer ever need that kind of speed?

"I think we're already seeing a demand for speed that is certainly greater than DSL. Ultimately, we would see applications that would push DSL beyond the limit. Fios investment is a minimum of a 15-year investment. We put in a technology that has a 15, 20, 25 year life, because we've got a broad number of things to do."

Do you encourage software makers to make online applications that need that kind of speed, such as a high-definition video download service?

"We have conversations with hundreds of different companies that are specializing in certain areas, and a whole group that is multimedia applications and service focused. But frankly, I don't think they're going to need a lot of stimulus from us. There is an engine that runs, which is that if you put the device and the network in place, the applications will show up, and vice versa."

FTTM - Fiber to the Mountain

2007-10-10T13:22:00.002-04:00

Click here to listen to a neat little clip about running power AND fiber up to the top of Mount Washington (a mountain I've hiked about 10 times)

Investors can cash in as demand for fiber optics takes off

2007-09-24T13:32:00.001-04:00

Despite the countless miles of unused fiber-optic cable laid during the dot-com bubble, demand for the high-capacity lines has been rising. And that bodes well for the stocks of companies that produce not only the cable but also the equipment that runs it.

Fiber-optic cable, typically made of ultrapure glass, can carry vast amounts of data via light. During the boom days of the Internet bubble, phone companies buried vast amounts of fiber-optic cable, in part because they assumed that Internet traffic would soar.

Many companies initially laid large cables underground, even though many of the fibers wouldn't be used at first.

In the years since the dot-com boom, engineers have figured out how to move more data through the same amount of fiber, increasing the fiber-optic capacity. As a result, there are still untold miles of unused fiber cable, or dark fiber, in the USA.

But now, demand for new fiber-optic cable is zooming. "Worldwide, we expect double-digit growth rates in fiber-optic cable demand the next few years," says Richard Mack of KMI Research/CRU, a London-based research firm. One key reason: the boom in moving video and audio files via the Internet.

The light fantastic

Watching a video on the Internet sops up far more bandwidth than just surfing websites does. The proliferation of video sites such as YouTube means that consumers have been demanding more and more bandwidth, to move files at faster speeds.

Fiber-optic cable demand should rise 10% in the USA this year, Mack says, and by as much as 15% in China and 20% in India. Each nation has different reasons for high demand:

•USA. There's plenty of dark cable left, mainly around large metro areas. And telecom companies are still laying cable. "It's part of forward planning," Mack says. "As we speak, people are putting in more cable than they need."

Demand for U.S. fiber-optic cable isn't coming from companies that are laying fiber for 20 years from now; it's mainly from companies that are connecting houses and apartments to existing fiber-optic lines. Despite all the cable available between cities, telecommunications companies still have to run cable down streets to link homes and offices to the existing lines.

About 1.3 million U.S. households, or 1.3% of all, were connected directly to fiber-optic lines in July, according to the Fiber-to-the-Home Council, a trade group. That number has grown to about 2% of households since then and could reach 25% within three years, says David St. John, spokesman for the group.

Verizon is spearheading the fiber-to-home growth in the USA. It connected about 203,000 new customers to its FiOS broadband and TV services in the second quarter of 2007. The company plans to spend a staggering $23 billion on its fiber-optic network by 2010. "Verizon is betting the farm on it," St. John says.

Helping to accelerate fiber-to-the-home growth is new bendable fiber, which makes it easier to connect apartment buildings to fiber-optic cable. Fiber-optic cable has high capacity. But it can crack or lose capacity if it's bent too sharply. On Wednesday, Corning, the largest U.S. producer of fiber-optic cable, introduced its ClearCurve cable, which it says is as bendable as copper wire — yet has about 3 million times the capacity.

•China. Chinese fiber-optic-cable demand has grown about 20% a year the past few years, Mack says, but will slow to about 15% this year because China has already built much of its city-to-city backbone. Still, the Chinese will use a great deal of cable as they prepare for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

•India. India is still building its Internet backbone, and demand for fiber-optic cable should grow about 20% a year, Mack says.

The biggest player in the fiber-optic-cable business is Corning. And it's a favorite among those who are bullish on fiber stocks. "Our biggest play there is Corning," says Kevin Landis, manager of Firsthand Technology Value fund.

Fiber options

Landis figures that Corning will benefit from the push to hook up households via optical fiber. He also thinks Corning will benefit from international growth. "Even though WorldCom deployed too much fiber across the Great Plains, that doesn't help China any."

Corning's stock performance hasn't lived up to its potential: It's up just 3.3% the past 12 months. Daniel Scalzi, CEO of Matrix USA, a Wall Street research firm, thinks the company has to shore up its balance sheet: "When you look at its profit margin and valuation, it doesn't work for us. They're spending a lot of money to make not enough money. That said, they're in a great business."

Ken Croft, manager of Croft-Leominster Value, suggests Cisco, which makes much of the equipment necessary for fiber-optic telecom. The stock has soared 40.8% over the past 12 months. But it isn't cheap: The stock is selling for 21.8 times its 2009 estimated earnings. (The price-earnings ratio tells you how expensive a stock is, relative to earnings. Lower is better.)

Another suggestion: General Cable, (BGC) which makes copper as well as fiber-optic cable. The stock has soared nearly 80% the past 12 months, and it sells for about 16 times its 2008 estimated earnings. But it's volatile: It's fallen about 15% the past three months.

A final possibility: Sumitomo Electric, a Japanese company with a fiber-optic-cable division.

AT&T aims for 10,000 IPTV installs per week

2007-09-21T13:35:00.000-04:00

AT&T has reduced the average installation time for its U-verse IPTV service by 13% in the past month, according to Ralph de la Vega, the carrier’s group president of regional telecommunications and entertainment. And the company hopes to continue reducing installation times and increasing the pace of service activations.

Recent process improvements have allowed AT&T to reduce its average U-verse installation time from 7.5 hours to 6.5 hours over the past month, de la Vega said at an investor conference this week.

“My best region is doing 5.8,” he said. “My best district is doing 5.6, and my best technician is doing 4. So I like the trend.”

In recent weeks, AT&T has been averaging between 7,000 and 8,000 installations per week, he said. “Ten thousand is very doable.”

Earlier this month, the company announced having amassed 100,000 subscribers for the IPTV service.

Along with historical improvements in technology costs, de la Vega also cited improvements in video encoding technologies that allow for better use of network bandwidth. “Today we code using 8.5 Mb,” he said. “We now have codecs we’ll put into our network effective next month that do it at 6.5 Mb.”

U.S. Start-Ups Set Sights on India

2007-09-18T16:51:00.001-04:00

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Rehan Jalil founded his wireless-broadband company WiChorus Inc. two years ago and based it here in the heart of Silicon Valley. But when it actually starts selling its gear to phone companies next year, WiChorus won't be looking for customers in California or anywhere else in the U.S. The company's target market is thousands of miles away -- in India.

In a twist on globalization -- and a nod to India's fast-growing economy -- an increasing number of high-tech start-ups, like WiChorus, are basing their operations in the U.S. but setting their sights on Indian customers.

Many of these Silicon Valley companies, often headed by Indian-born entrepreneurs, sell specially designed, low-cost products particularly suited to people in developing nations.

Examples include Bubble Motion Inc., based in Mountain View, Calif., which sells a voice-messaging service popular with non-English speakers who can't or don't want to type out text messages on a phone keypad. (Though some customers speak English, others are illiterate or use local Indian dialects that don't employ the Roman alphabet.) Biotech outfit ReaMetrix Inc., of San Carlos, Calif., develops low-cost diagnostic tests to manage ailments like diabetes and HIV infection. And Mobio Networks Inc. of Cupertino, Calif., is working with several Indian phone carriers to offer via cellphone free and low-cost entertainment, like sports information and gossip. All are funded by U.S. venture-capital firms.

Some of these start-ups are also targeting U.S. or European customers, or could do it down the road. But for now, most are following the made-in-the-USA, sold-in-India model, trying to tap India's rapidly expanding consumer market in hot industries like wireless technology and life sciences.

With these companies, "the market is Indian. The entrepreneur might be Indian," says Navin Chaddha, a managing director with the Mayfield Fund venture-capital firm, which is an investor in WiChorus. "But the problem is being solved in the U.S. for a market that sits outside the U.S."

Even though their products are destined for foreign shores, often these companies say they must be based in the U.S. to have access to specialized engineering talent, U.S. venture capital, or to protect intellectual property.

The trend represents the latest wrinkle in Silicon Valley's relationship with India. Engineers from the country have long migrated to the San Francisco Bay Area to get graduate degrees, find jobs and start companies. More recently, Silicon Valley companies have outsourced customer support and even some product-development work to India, though some have pulled back as labor costs there have climbed.

Venture capitalists also have begun investing directly in Indian companies, targeting the domestic Indian market. According to the National Venture Capital Association, a trade group, U.S. venture capitalists sank nearly $932 million into Indian companies last year, up from $583 million in 2005.

But WiChorus's Mr. Jalil, 37 years old, says many Indians prefer to work for bigger, brand-name firms and are hesitant to sign on with start-ups, which are seen as risky. He also says the U.S. offers a bigger, deeper pool of engineers with more expertise in a wireless technology called WiMAX and other arcane specialties critical to WiChorus's success. (WiMAX is similar to the Wi-Fi technology that creates Internet "hot spots" in cafes and airports, but operates over a much larger geographical area and can sometimes be accessed on the go, such as from a moving car.)

Many of Mr. Jalil's most-important employees are veterans of local high-tech companies, most notably Cisco Systems Inc. And his investors are big-name venture capitalists from Menlo Park and Palo Alto, which are both near his company's headquarters.

"Silicon Valley is the only place you could do this," asserts Mr. Jalil, an engineer who was born in Pakistan but educated in the U.S. He started WiChorus in late 2005 after leaving another wireless start-up, Aperto Networks, because he says he wanted to create lower-cost broadband technology for the developing world.

WiChorus does employ about 15 people in Hyderabad, a city in India well-known as a high-tech hub. But those workers mainly build network-management software, which Mr. Jalil calls "very specific, contained work," though it is critical to WiChorus's product.

WiChorus's 45 employees and assorted consultants in San Jose -- who work in cubicles and labs on the third floor of an office building with eye-catching, pumpkin-colored walls -- are the ones doing the hard-core product innovation, Mr. Jalil says. They include researchers with Ph.Ds from the University of California at Berkeley and managers like Sheldon Gilbert, the company's Massachusetts Institute of Technology-educated head of business development who founded another wireless-broadband company called Ensemble Communications. WiChorus's head of engineering, Kamal Avlani, spent 10 years at Cisco developing high-end routing devices for directing Internet traffic.

WiChorus is focusing on India first because WiMAX is sorely needed there, according to Mr. Jalil. The Indian government is pushing to increase broadband penetration but is now stymied by a lack of phone lines to offer high-speed access.

Of India's more than 1.1 billion people, only about 40 million subscribe to a traditional landline phone service, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. And not all of those lines are capable of transmitting data at broadband speeds, Mr. Jalil says. As of July, there were 193 million wireless-phone subscribers.

WiChorus says its gear can help offer Internet connectivity without the phone lines for as little as $15 a month. That may still be too expensive for the average Indian, who makes less than $900 a year, according to the World Bank, but it is affordable for higher-skilled workers. And prices could dip lower, just as charges for cellphone services have dropped in India over the past several years, according to Mr. Jalil.

Mr. Jalil says the reason that phone carriers using WiChorus's equipment will be able to charge so little is that the company has simplified products such as cellphone base stations (which serve as hubs to let the phones communicate), taking out nonessential features and functions. The company announced yesterday that it has received nearly $25 million in financing from U.S. investors that include the Mayfield Fund, Redpoint Ventures and Accel Partners.

Not everyone is convinced the new offshore business model is a good one. Rob Chandra, a managing partner at investment firm Bessemer Venture Partners in Menlo Park, says companies need more than great engineering talent to build products the developing world will buy.

"I am skeptical of companies that can know enough about what Indian consumers and enterprises need if the start-ups' management is sitting in Silicon Valley," says Mr. Chandra.

Mr. Jalil notes that most big Indian telecom carriers buy their core infrastructure from Western companies, like Finland's Nokia Corp. He is convinced WiChorus's technology is very relevant to India. "You can really bridge the gap between the emerging world and the developed world by bringing broadband connectivity," he says.

They're talking 'bout FTTH at ECOC

2007-09-18T16:36:00.000-04:00

Is FTTH more alive in Europe than it may at first appear? Click here to find out.

Go Buy Corning Stock - Info from Standard & Poor's

2007-09-11T17:45:00.000-04:00

S&P says demand for the company's LCD panels and fiber-optic gear will strengthen and rates the stock a strong buy

We contend that Corning (GLW; recent price, $24.71) is well-positioned to benefit from growing demand for both liquid-crystal display panels and fiber-optic telecommunications equipment. By our analysis, Corning's markets for LCD glass panels will remain strong, while the company's investments in facilities and its relationships with leading market share television manufacturers should yield higher sales.

We also forecast that fiber-optic sales to the telecommunications sector will strengthen over the next two years. We expect strong revenue and earnings-per-share gains in 2007 and 2008.

In our view, the shares are undervalued vs. those of peers and warrant a 5-STARS (strong buy) recommendation.

The telecommunications segment produces optical fiber and cable and hardware and equipment products for the worldwide telecommunications industry. A significant portion of Corning's optical fiber is sold to its own subsidiaries. The company's hardware and equipment products include cable assemblies, fiber-optic hardware, fiber-optic connectors, and optical components and couplers.

In April, 2007, Corning announced plans to reopen a portion of its Concord (N.C.) optical fiber manufacturing facility as a result of volume growth in the optical fiber market, which has been greater than 15% over the past two years. In July, 2007, the company announced plans to expand its optical fiber manufacturing facility in China based on continued growth in that country's optical fiber market. The expansion is expected to be completed in 2009.

Fiber Optic Connector, Mechanical Splice Global Market Forecast

2007-09-11T13:52:00.000-04:00

The global fiber optic connector and mechanical splice consumption last year (2006) was $1.396 billion. The consumption value will increase with strongly rising quantity growth partially offset by declining average prices. By the year 2011, the worldwide consumption value is forecasted to reach $3.451 billion.

North America led in global consumption with 47.3 percent or $660million in 2006. North American consumption will expand in value to $1.43 billion by 2011, as shown in Table 1.1.1. North American connector consumption will be driven by the proliferation of relatively shorter links used in private data and local loop networks. European fiber optic connector consumption, 21.2 percent in 2006, is led by the European Union member states as they transition to open competition in delivery of broadband services to business, as well as residential customers. The fastest growth in connector consumption will occur in Japan/Pacific Rim with a forecasted average annual growth rate of 25.5 percent (2006-2011). Rest of the World (including South America) region stimulated by favorable national economic policies and the trend toward telecom liberalization also has an impressive forecast of annual growth.

Customers agree: Fiber is good for you - Television companies lead satisfaction survey

2007-09-11T13:42:00.000-04:00

Satellite and cable television services might have more formidable competition in telephone companies than they might have imagined, judging from customers' reactions.

A study scheduled for release Tuesday found that FiOS, the fiber-optic TV service from Verizon Communications, scored the highest on a recent customer-satisfaction survey.

Adding those who are very or somewhat satisfied with their current TV provider, FiOS scored 96%. DirecTV is second with 89%, then Dish Network with 82% and Comcast and AT&T U-verse, another fiber-optic service, tie at fourth with 73%. Cablers Cox, Cablevision, Time Warner and Charter, in that order, bring up the rear.

The survey of 1,586 consumers is from ChangeWave Research.

Run by Fox News personality Tobin Smith, ChangeWave draws on an alliance of 10,000 members who are wealthier than the general public and earlier adopters of new technology. ChangeWave surveys its alliance for the purpose of locating investable Wall Street trends.

About 4% of the alliance members are fiber-optic TV subscribers, 27% are satellite subscribers and the rest are cable customers.

"What's perhaps most striking is that none of the top players in terms of customer satisfaction are cable companies," the report indicated.

When grouped by type of service, only 13% of cable customers are "very satisfied" with their TV provider, compared with 32% of satellite customers and a hefty 45% of fiber-optic subscribers.

On the flip side, cable comes out last again, with 6% saying they are "very unsatisfied," compared with 2% for satellite and fiber-optic.

When "very satisfied" and "somewhat satisfied" are lumped together, cable is at 70% and satellite and fiber-optic tie at 85%.

"Satellite subscribers appear far more content with their TV service than cable subscribers," the report found. "Although based on a smaller sample, an impressive 85% of fiber subscribers gave the newest TV technology a thumbs-up."

Naturally, the survey sought to predict the future, a profitable endeavor if ChangeWave can call it correctly. It found that 13% of its alliance are considering a change, and 44% of those plan to switch to fiber-optic.

ChangeWave director of research Paul Carton calls that "a huge eight-point jump since the previous survey."

The survey found 40% of those planning to change their service provider will switch to satellite and only 15% will switch to cable, with the majority considering Comcast and Time Warner/Road Runner.

The findings, however, are contingent on the ability of the fiber-optic providers to expand their coverage fast enough to keep up with the demand, which is no small feat.

U-verse, which got a later start than FiOS, only has about 100,000 subscribers nationwide, mostly because its infrastructure is not built out much. But AT&T has said that it will spend $6.8 billion to build its network so that it will pass 18 million homes by the end of 2008. FiOS, which passed the 1 million subscriber mark in June, already topped 5 million homes and will pass 8 million by year's end.

From 2007-11, TV provided by phone companies in the U.S. will grow their subscriber ranks by 52.5% annually to 14 million. Cable will grow at less than 1% to 67.7 million and satellite will grow at 1.7% to 30.5 million.

"These findings are quite bullish for fiber-optic TV," Carton said of the ChangeWave survey. "Not all TV services are equal."

Verizon Shoots FiOS Infomercials

2007-09-06T13:38:00.000-04:00

Telco Targets Comcast Markets With ‘My Home 2.0’

Verizon plans to hype its FiOS product this fall through infomercials modeled after reality shows such as ABC’s Extreme Makeover.

The telco said Wednesday that it will pick five Pennsylvania homes this month to wire with FiOS TV and FiOS Internet. The infomercial series, called, My Home 2.0, will bring “the world of high tech into the homes of regular families,” Verizon said. “Segments will feature an energetic trio of technology gurus dispatched to analyze each family’s particular situation, solve problems and set about transforming their lives through technology.”

Verizon said it will pick homes in the Philadelphia area, where Comcast is the incumbent operator.

It plans to begin filming Sept. 12 in the Bucks County community of Yardley, and will wrap up with a communitywide block party on Sept. 15 as the family’s home-technology makeover is unveiled.

Verizon said it will pick two other southeastern Pennsylvania homes for My Home 2.0, and that later this fall, it will select two Pittsburgh area homes for “technology makeovers” that will be used for the series.

The telco didn’t say which networks will carry the infomercials.

U-verse growing rapidly

2007-09-05T14:03:00.000-04:00

San Antonio-based telecommunications giant AT&T Inc. said it now has 100,000 subscribers to U-verse, the pay-TV service it rolled out to compete with cable rivals.

The company also said the copper and fiber-optic network over which it delivers video programming now passes 5 million households, 3 million shy of the 8 million it's projected to reach by the end of this year.

The new subscriber landmark comes about half a year after AT&T delayed its U-verse expansion to fix technical glitches that dogged early customers. The company ended last year with just 3,000 customers, most of them in its San Antonio launch market, leading some analysts to question whether it effectively could use the platform to reach customers nationwide.

"Since the end of last year, we've added 97,000 new customers, and we think that shows good progress," company spokesman Wes Warnock said. "We're very happy with where we are at this point."

This month, AT&T will begin expanding U-verse's interactive features to include games and the ability for customers to check stocks, weather and Yellow Pages listings via their TV remote, Warnock added. Dallas will be the first market where such features become available, and others will follow in coming weeks.

The company also plans to launch at least five additional high-definition channels in coming weeks, Warnock said.

"We think those interactive features are what help differentiate between us and cable," he said. "And this is just the beginning."

AT&T is eager to get into the video business as cable providers such as Time Warner Cable and Comcast Corp. have moved aggressively into the residential and business phone market. Both phone and cable companies are eager to lure customers with a so-called "triple play" of telecom services that includes phone, video and high-speed Internet service.

Rival phone company Verizon Communications Inc. is installing new fiber directly to customers' houses to deliver its video service called FiOS.

While standard phone service has become less profitable for telecom providers, Frost analyst Le Keough said consumers are spending more on other services such as broadband access and video. That increases the urgency for phone companies like AT&T to expand into video.

"Households spending on those services is increasing faster than the rate of inflation," Keough said. "If you can exploit that, it's a good market to be in."

U-verse's rollout delays and technical glitches last year touched off speculation that AT&T would seek another way to enter the video business — buying a satellite TV provider, for example. But analysts said the company's brisk and continued expansion has hushed much of that talk.

"The U-verse deployment sounds like it's actually starting in earnest," Keough said. "If they managed to fix their technical issues, the rest of the rollout should be successful."

Warnock said AT&T remains committed to U-verse and has worked through its technical issues. It has expanded the service market by market this year, reaching 30 metro areas, including Los Angeles, Houston and Milwaukee.

In May, AT&T said it will spend up to $1.4 billion more than planned to continue expanding U-verse. That boosts its projected cost to $6.5 billion by the end of 2008 from previous estimates of a little more than $5 billion.

What's more, in December the company will announce plans to expand U-verse into the Southern states served by phone company BellSouth Corp., which it bought this past year. That announcement, Warnock said, will expand its rollout beyond earlier projections that its network would pass 18 million homes by the end of 2008.

Sterlite launches optical fiber for tight radii

2007-09-05T10:49:00.001-04:00

SEPTEMBER 4, 2007 — Sterlite Technologies Ltd. will launch BEND-LITE (E) single-mode optical fiber at ECOC 2007, Booth 17095. The fiber enables fiber to the home/premise (FTTx) with a small bending radius and cable mounting inside and outside premises.

It reportedly enables tighter routing and higher fiber density for component design and fiber deployment in central offices, subscriber equipment, backplane solutions, and premise wiring. BEND-LITE (E) suits triple-play voice, video, and data service networks and access network installations. It is designed for high resistance to additional losses, due to macro bending at 1310-, 1550-, and 1625-nm wavelengths.

Ciena Swings to Profit

2007-08-31T10:30:00.000-04:00

Boosted by strong sales and gross margins, Ciena realized a profit and beat analysts' expectations in its fiscal third quarter.

For the quarter ended July 31, 2007, the optical vendor reported earnings of $28.3 million, or 29 cents a share, on revenues of $205 million. That compares with a loss of $4.3 million, or 5 cents per share, on sales of $137.8 million in the year-ago quarter.

Ciena's revenues grew 5.9 percent sequentially and 34.4 percent year over year, beating Wall Street expectations. Analysts expected quarterly sales of $203.25 million, according to Thompson Financial.

The company also posted strong margins for the quarter, with overall gross margins at 47.7 percent and product gross margins of 53.7 percent. That compares with Wall Street estimates of 44.5 percent.

Excluding certain one-time and non-cash items, the company reported third-quarter earnings of $40 million, or 41 cents per share. That beat analyst expectations for profits of 31 cents per share.

Ciena's third-quarter 2006 results included a restructuring charge of $11 million. Excluding one-time charges, earnings were $20.6 million, or 23 cents per share, in the previous year's third quarter.

Ciena's earnings come in the wake of a number of customer wins in the quarter and continued strong business from existing customers. Earlier in the quarter, the company touted customer wins at JANET ("the UK's education and research network") and AboveNet Inc., and talked up business that it had won at BT Group plc as part of that company's 21CN project.

Ciena's fiscal third quarter marks continued momentum for the company, which has posted 14 quarters of sequential revenue growth. The company's stock has responded to that growth, rising nearly 40 percent year-to-date.

FTTT - Fiber to the Tundra

2007-08-30T11:53:00.000-04:00

Fiber optic projects in the works

COMPETITION: GCI, ACS reveal network expansion plans.

Two rival telecom companies based in Anchorage are launching multimillion-dollar fiber-optic projects this year.

General Communication Inc. officials announced Wednesday that they plan to build a $30 million fiber-optic network in Southeast Alaska, connecting Ketchikan, Wrangell, Petersburg, Angoon and Sitka, and laying a second GCI fiber link to Juneau.

In April, Alaska Communications Systems announced its own fiber optic project, linking Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, with startup costs of $75 million to $90 million. This month, ACS launched a marine survey to find potential routes between Anchorage and Kenai Peninsula, progressing south to the Panhandle, and terminating somewhere in the Pacific Northwest.

GCI's project could be completed in November 2008, and ACS's project would be finished in early 2009, according to the companies.

GCI already owns two of the three fiber-optic networks linking Alaska to the Lower 48. As yet, ACS doesn't own a fiber-optic network running from Alaska to the Lower 48.

Fiber-optic cables can carry enormous volumes of long-distance phone, Internet and other data traffic. Fiber cables were laid across the globe in the 1990s, contributing to the rapid growth of Internet use since then.

Residents in Ketchikan, Wrangell, Petersburg, Sitka and Angoon do not have access to a fiber-optic network, according to GCI. The new fiber-optic link to the small Southeast towns will speed up their Internet connections, increase the number of cable and HD TV cable stations available, and reduce outages, said GCI public affairs specialist Sydney Morgan.

GCI is working on getting state and federal permits, as well as a Federal Communications Commission license, for its project.

In late July, ACS officials told their investors that fiber optic to the Lower 48 will make the company more competitive.

180 Connect secures FTTH contracts in Western U.S.

2007-08-30T09:24:00.000-04:00

AUGUST 29, 2007 -- 180 Connect Inc., provider of installation, integration, and fulfillment services to the home entertainment, communication, and home integration service industries, has been awarded contracts to develop fiber-to-the-home and municipal fiber networks for the City of Palo Alto, CA, and the Truckee Donner Public Utility District, CA. These projects, combined with the company's City of Ontario, CA, project, represent the largest fiber deployment to residential communities in the Western U.S., say 180 Connect representatives.

City of Palo Alto, CA

180 Network Services has been awarded by the City of Palo Alto, CA, a contract to begin the development of a municipal fiber network, which is expected to bring fiber-optic lines to every home and business in the City of Palo Alto, representing over 31,000 homes and businesses.

The project is expected to begin in the first quarter ofI2008 with a term of five years, creating a significant projected revenue backlog, reports the company. 180 Connect says it has initiated the process of business planning for the project and is currently reviewing the assets of the City of Palo Alto that will be used in the construction and financing of other projects.

Truckee Donner Public Utility District (PUD), CA

180 Network Services has also been selected by the Truckee Donner Public Utility District to begin the planning process for a new FTTH development and municipal fiber network that will provide high-speed broadband service to over 15,000 homes and business throughout the municipality. The current estimated value of this project is in excess of $15.5 million, says 180 Connect.

"Our municipal fiber optic projects in Boise, ID; Ontario, [CA]; and Shafter, CA continue to deliver exceptional margins as well as showcase our capabilities to future customers," notes Peter Giacalone, president and CEO of 180 Connect Inc. "The City of Palo Alto and the Truckee Donner Public Utility District are expected to more than double annual revenues in our 180 Network Services business and represent our continued success in diversifying our earnings base into the commercial marketplace, while leveraging our existing strengths," he adds. "180 Network Services has, in a very short period of time, become highly recognized as providing a single source, total integration solution for fiber-to-the-home projects to both our municipal and private developer customers."

Angry? Don't take it out on the Fiber Optics

2007-08-28T12:15:00.003-04:00

Internet service providers in the U.S. experienced a service slowdown Monday after fiber-optic cables near Cleveland were apparently sabotaged by gunfire.

TeliaSonera AB, which lost the northern leg of its U.S. network to the cut, said that the outage began around 7 p.m. Pacific Time on Sunday night. When technicians pulled up the affected cable, it appeared to have been shot. "Somebody had been shooting with a gun or a shotgun into the cable," said Anders Olausson, a TeliaSonera spokesman.

The damage affected a large span of cable, more than two-thirds of a mile [1.1 km] long, near Cleveland, TeliaSonera said.

The company declined to name the service provider whose lines had been cut, but a source familiar with the situation said the lines are owned by Level 3 Communications Inc. Level 3 could not be reached immediately for comment.

Cogent Communications Inc. warned that some customers may be experiencing disruptions because network lines had been cut somewhere between Montville, Ohio, and Cleveland. "Splice crews are currently doing preparation work on the new fiber cable before splicing begins to resolve the outage," Cogent said in a note to customers.

According to Keynote Systems Inc.'s Internet Pulse Report , Cogent was experiencing significant latency problems on Monday.

The outage caused headaches for Christopher McCoy, a system administrator for a Web hosting company in Atlanta. "This Telia outage is really causing a pain," he wrote in a blog posting. "Telia is one of my company’s main network providers, and explaining to your average Webmaster the details and specifics of a fiber break isn’t all that easy."

Bend Insensitive Fiber - Is it as good as it seems?

2007-08-28T11:50:00.001-04:00

An interesting article from our friends at ADC. Making the argument that bend insensitive does not mean indestructable. To read it click here.

Two top executives to leave merged Alcatel

2007-08-23T13:44:00.000-04:00

The turbulent 10-month marriage between Alcatel of France and Lucent of the US on Wednesday claimed two senior victims with the departure of highly-regarded executives from the telecommunications equipment supplier.

Mike Quigley, the Australian once tipped to be chief executive of the French group, and Frank D'Amelio, the former Lucent executive who was put in charge of integrating the two companies, had both resigned, the company said.

Mr D'Amelio is leaving to become chief financial officer at Pfizer of the US, the world's largest drugmaker. Mr Quigley, who moved sideways to become head of science, technology and strategy after the Lucent merger put paid to his chief executive prospects, is returning to his native Australia.

Analysts said Mr Quigley's departure was not a surprise given the fact that he had lost to Lucent's Pat Russo for the chief executive role.

However, Mr D'Amelio's departure raised concerns with at least one analyst, given the problems the group has already encountered in integrating the French and US companies. Alcatel is struggling to implement a cost saving programme that will mean more than 12,000 job cuts worldwide. French unions are fiercely opposed to the plan and media reports have suggested that the programme will have to be revised significantly.

The group has also reported consistently disappointing results since the merger, and has been forced to cut prices significantly to retain clients.

One of the company's smaller suppliers told the Financial Times that meetings with Alcatel-Lucent teams had revealed deep confusion over who was in charge and unhappiness over how the merger was being conducted.

Pat Russo, the US-born Lucent boss who took over as chief executive last year, on Wednesday sought to play down the departures.

"We are well served with a strong bench of top executive talent that we can draw upon,'' she said.

Fiber in Sensing Application

2007-08-23T13:29:00.000-04:00

FOX-TEK Expands Product Line Significantly with Micron Optics Agreement - System Integrator Status Adds New Sensing Capabilities
Wednesday August 22, 9:00 am ET

TORONTO, Aug. 22 /CNW Telbec/ - Fiber Optic Systems Technology, Inc. ("FOX-TEK"), a developer and manufacturer of patented non-intrusive sensing systems, today announced the signing of a System Integrator agreement with Atlanta-based Micron Optics, the world leader in Fiber Bragg Grating sensor technologies. FOX-TEK is now the only approved System Integrator for Micron Optics products in Canada.

Micron Optics is broadly recognized for the development of high quality sensing and telecom products based upon their own Fiber Bragg Grating technologies. "Micron Optics is definitely the leader in this particular area of fiber sensing and we are very pleased to be able to offer monitoring solutions for our customers based upon their products," said Dr. Don Morison, FOX-TEK's Vice President of Operations and Engineering. Dr Morison continued, "We will now be able to monitor areas of concern with up to several hundred point sensors and we can address a wider range of corrosion and deformation issues in the oil and gas sector. As FOX-TEK grows, we can apply this technology in the civil infrastructure sector to the health monitoring of bridges, dams, tunnels and for third party intrusion detection.

"Previously, we've successfully used Micron Optics systems in some of our R&D projects," said Dr. Essam Zaghloul, FOX-TEK president and CEO. "Now that we're a System Integrator, we can broaden our suite of solutions to help our clients in the petrochemical, oil and gas, and other areas realize cost savings in their integrity management programs."

FTTDU - Fiber to the Down Under

2007-08-21T14:43:00.000-04:00

While we in Australia await the deliberations of the government's expert panel on fibre-to-the-node (FTTN), other countries in the region are steadily building fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) access networks. Ovum's estimates are that by the end of 2009 there will be approximately 13.8 million FTTH subscribers globally, 82% of whom will reside in the Asia-Pacific region. FTTH activity in the region is concentrated in Japan, the Republic of Korea and Taiwan. In the US, Verizon is undertaking a high-profile campaign of installing FTTH for its fibre-optic service (FiOS) customers.

Is FTTH a possibility for Australia, specifically for the great Australian suburbs? Currently available public information suggests a cost of around $1,500 per household. This is probably more than twice the cost of an FTTN alternative, except where there are extensive civil works (as in new housing estates). Although the costs can be lower - in Taiwan, Chunghwa Telecom is planning to spend a little less than $1,000 per premise for fibre to about 1.8 million premises over the next five years - this is still a very large investment that requires a solid business case or clear policy objectives.

There are four main ways in which a major network upgrade can be justified: investment in national infrastructure; new services; operations cost savings; and competitive response.

The first - investment in national infrastructure - has recently been revived by the Australian Opposition and has received some attention. The ability to provide higher-speed broadband services should be a boost to national productivity. In the early years, there may be little to choose between FTTN and FTTH in terms of productivity: both could deliver 50Mbit/s downstream and 1-2Mbit/s upstream. But, eventually, if we all want the line rates currently delivered to office desktops - namely, 100-1,000 Mbit/s - then FTTH will be required. If government money is to be applied to the project, then the architecture should be future proof or easily upgradeable.

The second justification - new services - is usually about delivery of IPTV, the next generation of television with many new features. IPTV is a secondary issue in Australia, where cable TV is still immature. Higher-speed Internet access, though, is a potential generator of new revenues. Small-business producers of large volumes of digital content and online financial traders are among the users who would benefit from higher access speeds and who would be likely to pay more. However, one should not expect that incremental service revenues would be sufficient to justify FTTH over FTTN - the cost difference is just too great.

The third possible justification - operations costs savings - is a key consideration for some companies, such as Verizon. An influential report in the US from 2004 suggested that the US telcos could justify an aggressive rollout of FTTH based on operations costs savings and new service revenues. This has been taken up by FTTH advocates. It is certainly true that the network-related operations costs for FTTH are substantially less than for current copper networks and for FTTN networks. There is still little experience of optical terminations in the home and it is likely, for the first few years at least, that the maintenance of optical network units in homes will be a major cost. In short, the operations costs savings are not yet certain.

The fourth possibility - competitive response - is a major driver for the telcos in the US, because of competition from the cable TV operators. This is also an issue in Hong Kong and Japan, but not in Australia. Facilities-based competition in Australia is patchy at best, although some see Telstra's proposed FTTN programme as a pre-emptive strike against DSLAMs by alternative service providers in Telstra exchanges. Any significant rollout of FTTN or FTTH will require regulatory oversight - and perhaps intervention - to provide some form of equal access for alternative service providers. FTTH raises some major issues of how alternative service providers could differentiate their offerings on an incumbent's infrastructure. FTTN, on the other hand, permits sub-loop unbundling within its access possibilities.

It looks like many Australian suburbs will get FTTN over the next few years, but only a few newly built ones will get FTTH. Does this matter? Well, it certainly entrenches relatively high operations costs for the time being - perhaps for a generation, since major access network upgrades happen rarely. The additional costs will have to be paid for through retail prices. It may also eventually limit productivity growth if the predictions for bandwidth requirements of 100 Mbit/s per household or higher come true. An upgrade to FTTH in the next generation seems highly likely.

The government response would do well, then, to promote FTTH where it is cost justified, while supporting or accelerating the rollout of FTTN. A broader view of the issues, such as reduced road traffic through greater home working and remote delivery of health and education services, could start to close the cost gap between FTTN and FTTH. Could it close the gap completely? A rough estimate based on publicly available figures suggests the government would need to provide about $4.5 billion over 4-5 years for the first 4.5 million homes to have FTTH and perhaps another $6 billion later for the remaining 3 million homes. This is comparable to support for land transport in the federal budget (about $4 billion per annum) but the political will to do it is missing.

Leith Campbell is a Principal Consultant with Ovum Consulting in Melbourne. He was previously the CEO of the Australian Telecommunications Cooperative Research Centre.

Fiber Optics and Food - Coming to a Kitchen Near You.

2007-08-21T09:34:00.000-04:00

Here's that final touch you've been looking for in the kitchen remodel war with the Joneses: efficient fiber optics (EFO), the "breakthrough in accent lighting technology," could be perfect for your undercounter needs.

You want green? This is the most efficient fiber optic lighting system in the world, according to developer Solon, Ohio based Energy Focus. "One 70 watt EFO lamp delivers the center beam candlepower of eight 50 watt Halogen lamps - replacing a total of 400 watts." The government agrees--it handed out $12.7 million in R&D support and awarded the company a 2007 DARPATech Small Business Innovation Research Award for Excellence.

DARPA calls it a breakthrough technology with the potential to innovate lighting systems across the Department of Defense. The Navy is currently testing Energy Focus technology on two ships at sea, where it expects to save 52,000 kWh a year on one ship alone.

The technology--a patented compound parabolic collector surrounding a 70-watt HID lamp connected to adjustable EFO fixtures via optically pure, U.S.-made, flexible fiber--gives your breakfast bar what retailers call the "power walk" look, without browning out the neighborhood.

These fixtures put out no heat (they're used to light ice sculptures), no IR and no UV, which means they're closet friendly--no fading.

And they're supposedly easy to specify. The fiber comes custom-cut from the factory; you simply plug the illuminator and the fixture into a phone jack-like wall outlet.

FTTS - Fiber Through The Sewer

2007-08-18T08:27:00.000-04:00

AUGUST 16, 2007 -- Following a deal with H2O Networks, the University of Aberdeen plans to welcome new and returning students with a new high-bandwidth Internet network at the start of the autumn term. H2O Network's Fibre Optical Cable Underground Sewer System or FS Focus System will provide the University of Aberdeen with a high-capacity link for the next 10 years, enabling students to access the internet in their bedrooms in University halls of residence, improving the overall student living experience and widening the choice of studying options available to students, say H2O Networks representatives.

"Making University life as rich as possible for our students is the main aim of everything we do," reports Garry Wardrope, network services manager at the University of Aberdeen. "When embarking on our 'Internet to room' project, we wanted a cost-effective method that would offer the kind of bandwidth students demand when researching for course projects or writing their dissertations."

"H2O's FS Focus System offers high bandwidth at a price model that makes sense," he adds. "This, coupled with the innovative nature of the 'fibre via the sewer' network, makes the overall H2O proposition an exciting one."

As existing networks become increasingly congested with more cable types, it has become difficult for network companies to find new pathways, say H2O Networks representatives. The company's new development allows universities to use the sewer network to set up their own secure IT and telecom network, rather than the traditional, disruptive method of digging up roads.

The deployment process is a least 80% faster than traditional methods, says the company, resulting in operational networks within weeks rather than months.

"While universities strive to provide students with the best learning environment possible, cost and pricing models will often dictate the choice made," notes Elfed Thomas, managing director of H2O Networks. "With our FS Focus System, we are offering high bandwidth via an environmentally friendly network, through a fixed low cost rental model. Our solution addresses all the issues affecting public sector purchasing decisions today," he contends.

Established in 2002, H2O Networks deploys dark fibre in the UK's waste water network to enable connectivity to those that have limited access.

Got Bandwidth?

2007-08-15T05:35:00.000-04:00

AUGUST 14, 2007 -- Escalating demand for bandwidth-hungry services such as HDTV and online gaming is gradually leading to a critical lack of capacity in cable operators' networks. Several solutions are available and, according to a study from ABI Research, collectively they will account for some $80 billion worldwide in investment over the next five years.

"Cable-TV operators trying to satisfy the increasing bandwidth demands of HDTV customers feel very much like the thrifty grocer who tried to cram ten pounds of potatoes into a five-pound bag," says vice president and research director Stan Schatt. "The increasing bandwidth demands on cable operators will soon reach crisis stage, yet this is a 'dirty little industry secret' that no one talks about."

Some of the solutions noted in the study -- such as rate shaping and expanding spectrum beyond 750 MHz -- have already been undertaken by some cable operators (particularly in the United States). However, a number of other options will come into play during the 2007-2012 forecast period, including spectrum upgrades coupled with node-splitting, switched digital video, PON overlay, MPEG-4 compression, and home gateway bandwidth management strategies, says ABI.

All these involve tradeoffs and balancing of cost versus benefit, and ABI asserts some are more applicable in certain circumstances than others. ABI says the best real-world approaches for particular operators may be determined using several cost models developed for its research: an ROI model, a Cost-Benefit model, and a Relative Cost model.

The ABI Research study, "Assessing CATV Bandwidth-Expansion Solutions," applies these models to the various ways of expanding the spectrum and bandwidth on video networks.

Traveling in Taiwan

2007-08-13T08:04:00.000-04:00

This week I am in hot and humid Taipei. Sorry for the lack of news. There will be lots to post when I return.

SteveO

Corning to expand Shanghai optical fiber manufacturing facility

2007-08-09T14:14:00.001-04:00

Corning has announced plans to expand its optical fiber manufacturing facility in China. The company says the decision is based on continued growth in the China optical fiber market.

"The optical fiber market in China is expected to more than double in annual volume this decade driven by increasing need for the widespread deployment of high-speed, broadband optical communications networks," comments Martin J. Curran, senior vice president and general manager, Corning Optical Fiber. "The expansion of our Shanghai facility will ensure that we have adequate capacity to meet this opportunity and maintain our strong position in the China optical fiber market."

The expansion of Corning's Shanghai optical fiber manufacturing facility will begin immediately and is expected to be completed in 2009.

"For more than 20 years, as China's communications infrastructure evolved to fiber-optic networks, Corning has played an important role and provided technologically advanced optical fiber as the foundation of a large percentage of China's nationwide communications backbone," remarks Eric S. Musser, chief executive officer, Corning Greater China. "Today we are announcing another significant milestone which further strengthens Corning's commitment to produce the highest-quality optical fiber in this region."

Corning also manufactures optical fiber at its plant in Wilmington, North Carolina. The company also recently announced plans to partially open its optical fiber plant in Concord, North Carolina, due to continued growth in the worldwide optical fiber market.

Molex Buys Polymicro Tech

2007-08-06T13:46:00.000-04:00

LISLE, Ill., July 26, 2007 -- Electronic components company Molex Inc. announced it has acquired Phoenix, Ariz.-based Polymicro Technologies LLC. Terms were not disclosed.

Polymicro makes silica capillary tubing and specialty optical fibers, optical fiber and capillary assemblies, discrete microcomponents and quartz optical fiber ferrules. It also provides initial product design, product & process development, prototyping and beta trials and volume production services for analytical, medical, aerospace, military, manufacturing, telecommunication and communication markets, with the potential for entry into the analytical, genomic and biotechnology markets, Molex said.

Polymicro has been in business since 1984 and employs approximately 100. It will operate as a subsidiary of Molex Inc. as part of its Global Integrated Products Div. A Molex spokesperson said all of Polymicro's work force will remain at its Phoenix facility and that its operations "will be business as usual."

Michael Nauman, president of the Molex division, said the acquisition will help boost its share of the global fiber-optic assemblies market.

Molex products include electrical and fiber optic interconnection products and systems, switches and integrated products. It has 65 plants in 20 countries.

CommScope Sees BrightPath for Cable FTTP

2007-08-06T13:21:00.000-04:00

August 6, 2007

Commscope has emerged as the early leader in supplying cable operators with fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) solutions targeted at greenfields and low-density regions.

CommScope says it has deployed BrightPath, its FTTP solution, with three major cable operators, and has installations pending with another three MSOs.

The BrightPath system is billed for low-density areas or greenfields and new master communities, where developers may insist on FTTP because there's a perceived premium value assigned to homes attached to a strand of glass.

"So, in these cases, it is more about answering the call for FTTH from developers, and not about bandwidth," says CommScope's director of business development, David Morrocco.

The BrightPath system is designed to allow an operator to leverage its existing hybrid fiber/coax (HFC) plant. The platform consists of a special fiber node, supplied by Aurora Networks, and a home-side network interface unit (NIU) that converts signals from optical to electrical. Each subscriber is served by a single fiber drop, which transports 1550 nm down and 1310 nm in the reverse path. Up to 32 subscribers can be served on a single distribution fiber.

CommScope's manager of application engineering, Mark Vogel, calls BrightPath a "cyber version of an HFC plant."

The system is also made to be compatible with an operator's existing headends, cable modem termination systems, billing systems, cable modems, and digital set-tops.

"Operational systems and practices are unchanged, so headend and support personnel do not have to be retrained," Morrocco explains.

Although the economics can vary based on deployment densities, costs for installing BrightPath are within 20 percent of HFC new-builds, and about 50 percent better compared to the current PON-based scheme used by Verizon, according to CommScope.

In lower-density networks, Morrocco adds, BrightPath can cost less than HFC, because active electronics, save for the node, are eliminated.

Motorola and Scientific Atlanta have not announced any deployments or trial work with cable operators for their respective approaches. Alloptic, Inc., however, has gained some traction for its fiber-fed "MicroNode" system with operators such as Bend Broadband and Armstron Cable. Some Tier 1 MSOs are also exploring MicroNode deployments, according to Shane Eleniak, Alloptic's VP for marketing and business development.

Wave7 Optics is also approaching MSOs about deploying FTTP in targeted situations, but announcements have been few and far between. In 2006,CableOne teamed with Wave 7 to deploy an FTTP network serving a new 7,000-home area in Rio Rancho, N.M.

Morrocco says CommScope completed its first BrightPath deployment in August 2006. The company began shipping the system commercially about six months ago.

"We feel like we've hit the market in terms of having the right solution for cable operators," he says.

But CommScope is not disclosing names of its deployment and trial partners. According to multiple sources familiar with the system, however,Time Warner Cable, Bresnan Communications, CableOne , and Sunflower Broadband are among those giving BrightPath a look at some level.

Among that group, Sunflower Broadband, an operator based in Lawrence, Kan., is testing the BrightPath system in a neighborhood of about 40 to 50 homes.

Sunflower, which serves more than 30,000 subscribers, completed the installation near the end of July and is now conducting extensive tests of the FTTP platform, according to Patrick Knorr, the operator's general manager. Sunflower has been running fiber to businesses for nearly five years to deliver voice and high-speed Internet services, but has more recently started to ponder FTTP's potential in residential environments. Although home contractors may be insisting on FTTP in new developments, that's not the primary driver for Sunflower.

Sunflower, Knorr says, discovered that it makes more economic sense -- at least on paper -- to deploy FTTP in low-density, semi-rural areas, or to high-end homes on large lots, because plant and maintenance costs appear to be much lower than they are with HFC.

"I'd say we're 95 percent comfortable with what we're seeing," Knorr says of Sunflower's experience so far with BrightPath. The operator, he adds, is still ironing out some "minor" technology issues, including how Sunflower might provide backup power.

If BrightPath checks out, Sunflower may switch to that architecture for all greenfield construction and possibly use it to replace older plant in low-density areas. Knorr estimates that just 5 percent of Sunflower's plant, serving about 1 percent of its customer base, might fall into that category.

Knorr is also unconcerned if cable's involvement with FTTP in certain situations might create perceptions that HFC is in its waning days. In fact, he believes, as other MSOs do, that HFC has plenty of punch left.

While FTTP "is the next quantum leap forward, HFC is an extraordinarily powerful product that's embedded, and we've advanced that so it has [as much] capacity today as a fiber network. As time marches on, there will be a point, maybe 10 years from now, that we'll need fiber to meet customer needs."

And Sunflower isn't the only cable party to suggest that FTTP could play a part in the evolution of the HFC network. Last fall, a leaked "strategic assessment" from CableLabs titled Cable Response Alternatives To FTTP put forth the notion that it might be more economical for MSOs to take fiber all the way to the home… but not until node sizes reach below 125 homes passed. Today, plenty of HFC systems still operate node sizes of 500 or 250 homes.

Another indicator that FTTP will play a role in MSO strategies, either in greenfield pockets or as a longer-term evolutionary step, is the industry's recently created "RF Over Glass" study group, helmed by Time Warner Cable engineering exec Paul Brooks. That project, according to people familiar with it, is taking a closer look at the technology to determine whether it's necessary to take things to the next level and develop industry standards that aim to develop interoperability between vendors and drive down costs.

Bend it like Bekham...er, like Corning

2007-08-03T13:52:00.000-04:00

This is an article from Fortune magazine about Corning's new bendable fiber I posted about previously here.

(Fortune Magazine) -- Like any gigantic telecommunications company, Verizon is in love with optical fiber.

It likes that the super-skinny tubes of glass are lightweight and durable. It appreciates that fiber can carry phone calls over long distances without needing lots of gear to keep the signals moving along. But what Verizon really loves is the material's ability to transmit 25 trillion bits of data per second; that's the equivalent of 400 million simultaneous phone calls, or 450 channels of high-definition television. (That's about 3.6 million times the capacity of Verizon's copper phone lines, which can deliver seven million bits per second, tops.) And so Verizon, which wants to sell not just phone service but lightning-fast Internet connections and TV as well, is spending $23 billion to deploy 80,000 miles of fiber directly to as many as 18 million customers' homes.

But no love affair is perfect, and Verizon has one big quibble with those wonderful glass filaments: They can't be bent the way copper can. The problem isn't breakage: Optical fiber is very flexible. But light, which is how data and calls are transmitted in fiber, travels in a straight line. As long as the glass is kept taut, everything's wonderful. Bend it a little, however, and the light - and therefore the data - starts to escape. Wrap the strand in a tight coil, and you lose the signal entirely.

This intolerance for bending can make fiber optics a nightmare to install in someone's home. Snaking the wiring along the floorboards is out of the question - just one tight turn around the bookcase, and the signal is kaput. So Verizon's installers have been forced to come up with alternate routes, such as drilling holes in walls to get the cabling from one room to another. The process is time-consuming, expensive, and potentially destructive. The problem is particularly acute in apartment buildings - and there are a lot of those in Verizon's East Coast territory - which are full of conduits, shafts, and corners that must be navigated in order to hook up each customer. (In most single-family homes Verizon just needs to connect the fiber to a special box on the outside of the customer's house.) Fun fact: To get a fiber connection to a typical basement apartment, installers encounter an average of 12 right-angle turns.

Enter the brainiacs at Corning, a company best known to consumers for its sturdy cookware, a division it sold in 1998, and its Pyrex lab glass. Corning also happens to be the world's largest manufacturer of optical fiber (it is glass, after all), and when its executives learned that Verizon was planning to spend billions on the stuff, they sprang into problem-solving mode.

It turns out that Corning's researchers had been looking into developing new products specifically for fiber-to-the-home projects since 1998 - long before Verizon announced its fiber-optic service, known as FiOS. This year Corning completed work on a breakthrough fiber it is announcing this summer. The company gave Fortune an exclusive look at the technology, which has the potential to eliminate many of the challenges that have slowed fiber deployments worldwide.

"We're not always the fastest innovator, nor are we the cheapest," says Corning chairman and CEO Wendell P. Weeks. "So we have to solve big problems that really matter - and this is one of them." Many of its biggest advancements emanate from its upstate New York research center, Sullivan Park, a concrete and glass structure that looks more like an Eastern European housing project than a hotbed of innovation. And yet scientists there have invented everything from processes for making large LCD TV screens to lenses for the Hubble telescope and, now, highly bendable fiber.

Corning's researchers figured out a way to keep the light going as it turns corners - lots and lots of corners. We can't go too deep into the technical details - the company exhibits CIA-levels of paranoia about its inventions. But essentially Corning's technology infuses the cladding that surrounds the fiber's narrow core with microscopic guardrails called nanostructures. They help keep the light from seeping out of the fiber, even when it is wound around a pencil - treatment that normally would render it completely useless.

Like many innovations at Corning, the discovery of "bend insensitive" fiber was a combination of serendipity and determination. A group of scientists from different disciplines - chemist Dana Bookbinder, chemical engineer Pushkar Tandon, and optical scientist Ming-Jun Li - had been thinking independently about nanostructures in their fields. Bookbinder, a sociable chap who says he spends a lot of his time "b.s.-ing" with other scientists, realized they needed to collaborate. They began brainstorming on Friday afternoons, and by the summer of 2004 they had started experimenting with nanostructures in fiber.

At first they conducted experiments on their own initiative, with Bookbinder rewarding his colleagues with homemade chocolates for coming in on weekends to help cook up early versions of the fiber. He also encountered skeptics. "We had several physicists who rolled their eyes and said, 'This will never work,'?" Bookbinder recalls.

Corning's business executives were less disbelieving, and as soon as they got wind of the project in early 2006, they put it on the fast track for development. They even shared early findings with Verizon, which loves the idea.

"When you see somebody tie a fiber cable in a knot and it is still able to transmit a signal, you initially think, 'There's something not right with that,'?" says Paul Lacouture, the Verizon executive who has led its FiOS buildout. Lacouture (who announced his retirement in late June) says the company also is considering wireless technologies that could help it deliver broadband in apartments, but for now Verizon's money is on Corning and its bendable fiber.

Corning just needs to apply its innovation skills to the manufacturing process: The first spools of nanostructure fiber for commercial use have yet to roll out of Corning's factories. "When they have it," says Lacouture, "we're ready to use it."

ASIA LEADS THE WORLD IN FIBER-TO-THE-HOME PENETRATION

2007-08-02T13:06:00.000-04:00

(WASHINGTON, DC) – Hong Kong, South Korea and Japan are the world leaders in the percentage of homes that receive broadband communications services over direct fiber optic connections, according to a new global ranking of fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) market penetration issued jointly by the FTTH Councils of Asia-Pacific, Europe and North America.

According to this first ever official ranking of FTTH deployments in the world’s economies, 21.2 percent of homes in Hong Kong are wired with FTTH, followed by South Korea at 19.6 percent and Japan at 16.3 percent. Scandinavian countries occupy the next three positions, with Sweden having 7.2 percent of its households connected to FTTH, Denmark at 2.9 percent and Norway at 2.5 percent.

Taiwan, Italy, People’s Republic of China, The Netherlands and the United States round out the top 11 economies, with FTTH penetration rates of between 1.4 and 1 percent of households. Only economies with penetration of 1 percent or more were included in the ranking.

The three regional FTTH Councils joined together to create this first official global FTTH ranking in order to provide the telecommunications industry, governments and regulators with a unique snapshot of international fiber access penetration. Going forward, the councils will update and re-issue the rankings on an annual basis, as well as work jointly to further refine the research methods in order to provide more in-depth information.

Announcing the release of the global ranking at the FTTH Council Asia-Pacific’s Beijing Conference today, Shoichi Hanatani, President of the FTTH Council Asia-Pacific said, “For the first time we have a tool to monitor the transition that is now occurring around the world, from legacy copper loops to powerful new optical fiber access networks.”

The global ranking follows the unified definition of FTTH terms announced by the three councils last year, and which has formed the basis for recent market research by each council. For completeness and accuracy the ranking includes both FTTH and FTTB (fiber-to-the-building) figures, while copper-based broadband access technologies (DSL, FTT-Curb, FTT-Node) are not included.

“By pooling the data from three regional market studies, the compiled information completes a dedicated resource for global telecommunications professionals to compare industry research from different regions of the world, and open some eyes to the wider FTTH picture,” said Joeri Van Bogaert, President of the FTTH Council Europe. “This will be useful in monitoring the success of government and regulatory policy in supporting the historical transition to fiber-based broadband.”

“With this global ranking, it is now evident which countries are FTTH leaders and which are FTTH laggards,” said Joe Savage, President of the FTTH Council North America. “What is most interesting is how the leading economies in FTTH penetration are also those with clear public policies aimed at promoting deployment of next-generation broadband networks as a matter of strategic national importance.”

AT&T to offer TV service in N.C.

2007-08-02T12:59:00.001-04:00

RALEIGH - AT&T will spend $350 million to offer television to North Carolina households, creating a major competitor for cable and satellite companies and a new choice for channel surfers.

The phone company's investment in the state over the next several years, announced Tuesday in Raleigh, will pay for fiber-optic network upgrades needed to transmit TV signals over phone lines. AT&T wants to sell bundled packages of phone, Internet, wireless and TV service, which could help reduce prices and spur more technology.

But AT&T officials were mum on some crucial details Tuesday, such as when the company will start selling TV service in North Carolina and how much it will cost.

"We're working on getting the network upgraded and will say more -- probably before the end of the year -- on timing," said Cynthia Marshall, president of AT&T North Carolina after a news conference at the N.C. Museum of History in Raleigh. Ahead of that, "we don't want to give away too much to competitors," she said.

AT&T officials have said since last year that they are eager to get started. The company, which took over BellSouth's local phone business as part of its acquisition of that company last year, is losing its phone customers to rivals such as cable-TV companies.

AT&T began selling its U-Verse TV service months ago in Texas, California and other markets. The company has signed up 51,000 TV customers, up from 13,000 at the end of March.

"It's a nice situation for the consumer," said Elroy Jopling, a research director in Toronto for the Gartner research firm.

AT&T is a big company with deep pockets that can afford to break into the TV market. "The next few years will be kind of fun for TV viewers as they sit back, relax and decide who really wants their business," Jopling said.

Though some analysts question how the investment will play out for consumers, the industry thinks it is part of a competitive victory.

Phone companies "have spotted consumer demand for bundled services and are investing in the equipment to provide it," said Carole Woodward, chief executive of the N.C. Telecommunications Industry. The trade group was instrumental last year in persuading North Carolina lawmakers to pass new legislation.

In July 2006, after heavy lobbying, state lawmakers passed rules that made it easier for phone companies to offer TV service. The law, passed ostensibly to spur competition and investment, allows phone companies to get a statewide video license, rather than having to negotiate with multiple municipalities.

But even with the added competition, there might not be many new service offerings, analysts said. That's because AT&T isn't entering an underserved market so much as providing more of what is already being offered. If it doesn't, consumers will continue their exodus from traditional phone service to packages offered through Internet rivals and cable-TV providers such as Time Warner.

For now, "it's a defensive move to stop cable operators from getting people to switch over their services," said Vince Vittore, an analyst with Boston-based technology consulting firm Yankee Group.

Once AT&T has a better grasp on its network capabilities, it will likely announce slightly more competitive services, Vittore said.

Steve Notes: According to Wikipedia "AT&T U-verse is the brand name for a group of services provided over Internet Protocol (IP), including television service, Internet access, and eventually voice telephoneservice. The new services are carried on phone lines (or over fiber to the customer's premises), and are enabled by AT&T’s initiative to push fiber-optic lines closer to customers’ premises." To read more go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-verse or https://uverse1.att.com/launchAMSS.do

Fusion splicer targets industrial sector

2007-08-02T12:57:00.000-04:00

July 30, 2007 -- Fujikura Europe Ltd. has introduced a fusion splicer especially designed to support the increasing use of fiber-optic technology in industrial applications. With Large Diameter Fiber (LDF) splicing capability, the company says its new LDF series of products is able to splice all types of fiber currently available.

According to the company, the LDF product range, with a smaller footprint than products currently available in this market, can perform accurate, reliable splices using an arc fusion technique, thereby eliminating the need for external gas supply. A graphical user interface enables users to program the products' automated alignment system, reducing user error when splicing complex fibers, such as polarization maintaining fiber.

"Fiber-optic technology now underpins a vast number of industrial products and applications, from fiber laser manufacture to welding and cutting on car production lines, and biomedical processes such as laser eye surgery," comments Fernando Terceiro, splicer business team leader at Fujikura Europe. "To serve these markets effectively, splicers must be compact, cost-effective and user-friendly, as operators may have to work with different types of fiber, in many different environments, often without specific training or experience in fiber processing."

The company says the splicers are designed for OEMs, R&D establishments, the medical industry, automotive industry, fiber laser manufacturers and universities. The products are equipped with wide view cameras to focus on the whole image of the maximum diameter LDF, and employ a high power arc discharge unit, coupled with modified electrodes to withstand the high current. The splicers also include new attenuation modes for polarization maintaining fibers.

Fujikura's complete splicer portfolio will be on display at the European Conference on Optical Communication (ECOC) 2007, to be held September 17-19 at the Internationales Congress Centrum, Berlin.

Qwest Deploys New Optical Technology In Nationwide Network

2007-08-01T07:30:00.001-04:00

7/31/2007

Tulsa, OK - Qwest Communications International Inc. has announced upgrades to its nationwide fiber-optic network that quadruple broadband capacity for customers and triple geographic availability of ultra-high-speed services, claim Qwest representatives. When combined with Qwest's Metro Ethernet or Private Line services, the upgrade provides an end-to-end, cost-efficient, high-bandwidth connection delivering speeds scalable from 1 to 40 Gbits/sec, says the carrier.

Qwest says the upgrade of its national network to ultra-long-haul (ULH) technology, which is software configurable, already is benefiting businesses, government agencies, and wholesale customers by providing:

A dedicated broadband transport network without the capital investment and expense of owning and operating network infrastructure;
Full availability of ultra-high-speed services with access points in all major U.S. business centers and extensive global connectivity;
Faster service provisioning and increased agility with the ability to deploy, activate, reconfigure, and manage traffic remotely; and
The ability to aggregate and transport traffic over standard communications interfaces, including Ethernet and SONET.

"The spike in demand for bandwidth-intensive applications makes high-capacity, easily scalable connections vital for customers," explains Tom Richards, executive vice president of the Qwest business markets group. "This upgrade ensures Qwest will continue to provide customers the bandwidth and capabilities they need now and in the future over one of the most extensive, state-of-the-art networks in the world."

Qwest QWave services provided via the high-capacity ULH network offer customers a great alternative to purchasing or leasing dark fiber, says the carrier. Today businesses, including U.S. Bancorp and Telefonica, have chosen the enhanced QWave services enabled by the upgrade.

"Because Qwest's existing national network is a newer, high-performance, high-capacity network, the move to ULH has been fast, efficient, and relatively surgical from a capital investment standpoint," reports Pieter Poll, Qwest's chief technology officer. "We are simply upgrading existing fiber routes and expanding our nationwide points of presence." The ULH upgrade also supports continued scalability of Qwest IP services nationwide, and further augments ultra-high-bandwidth connectivity for customers to Qwest hosting centers, says the carrier.

Asia and the U.S. will drive PON over the next five years, says Dell'Oro

2007-07-31T18:42:00.000-04:00

JULY 31, 2007 -- Dell'Oro Group forecasts worldwide PON equipment revenues will reach almost $2 billion by 2011, a 70% increase from last year. According to its new report, the PON subscriber base is expected to increase five-fold over the next five years, driven by increasing migration of subscribers from slower speed broadband service, such as ADSL, to this high-speed service.

"Over the next five years, we expect the PON market will continue to be concentrated in Asia and North America, but also believe we'll start seeing significant deployments in parts of Europe," said Tam Dell'Oro, founder of Dell'Oro Group. "The market drivers differ between geographic regions. For example, deployments in Japan and Korea benefit from favorable government policy, while shipments in the U.S. are driven by traditional telecom operators, such as Verizon, offering TV services that are competitive with those offered by cable operators. In Europe, we believe PON deployments will be most significant in countries, such as France, where competition is strong from alternative operators."

The Dell'Oro Group 5-Year Forecast Report provides an overview of the broadband access industry, with tables covering manufacturers' revenue, average selling prices, and port/unit shipments for cable, DSL, and PON equipment.

Verizon earnings up 4.5 percent

2007-07-30T19:22:00.000-04:00

By PETER SVENSSON,

Verizon Communications Inc. on Monday reported second-quarter earnings that rose 4.5 percent from a year ago, mainly due to its successful cell phone division. The results met analysts' expectations.

Verizon, the country's second largest telecommunications company, earned $1.68 billion, or 58 cents per share, in the March to June period, up from $1.61 billion, or 55 cents per share, in the same quarter last year.

Last year's figure included the earnings from a number of business that have since been sold or spun-off, including the high-margin Yellow Pages business. Excluding those businesses, earnings in last year's second quarter were 43 cents per share.

Analysts polled by Thomson Financial were expecting earnings of 58 cents a share in the most recent quarter.

Revenue rose 6.3 percent to $23.3 billion.

Meanwhile, Verizon Wireless said Monday it has agreed to buy Rural Cellular Corp., which provides cell phone service in 15 states under the Unicel brand, for $757 million, or $45 per share.

That's a hefty premium over the $31.81 price for Rural Cellular shares at Friday's close, but the stock hit a high of $46.34 in early July, fueled by acquisition speculation.

In morning trading, the stock soared to $42.67.

Rural Cellular, based in Alexandria, Minn., has 716,000 subscribers. Some of them use phones with the same technology that Verizon Wireless uses, called CDMA, while others use GSM phones compatible with AT&T's and T-Mobile USA's networks.

Verizon Wireless said it plans to convert the GSM subscribers to CDMA service, but will maintain the GSM network for roaming by subscribers of other carriers.

Verizon is taking on about $1.9 billion in debt along with the acquisition, but said it expected the acquisition to save it $1 billion in roaming fees and operations expenses. Verizon Chief Executive Ivan Seidenberg said he sees the acquisition closing in the first half of next year.

Verizon shares fell 70 cents, or 1.6 percent, to $41.30 in midmorning trading.

Telecom analyst Thomas Watts at Cowen & Co. attributed the drop to traders selling the acquirer and buying the acquired, a common strategy. As contributing factors, he pointed to Verizon reporting somewhat more phone line losses than expected, along with weak broadband sales.

But overall, he said, he came away with "a positive feeling in the quarter," and sees the company continuing to boost its earnings.

Verizon Wireless added 1.6 million new customers in the second quarter, but lost 300,000 through the bankruptcy of Amp'd Mobile, which bought wholesale access to Verizon Wireless' network and resold it. Verizon Wireless ended the quarter with 62.1 million subscribers, just short of AT&T's 63.7 million.

Verizon Wireless is a joint venture of Verizon Communications and Vodafone Group PLC of Britain. All of its revenue is counted on Verizon Communications' books, but only 55 percent of its profits — the rest go to Vodafone.

Addressing competition from Apple Inc.'s iPhone, a much hyped handset introduced a month ago exclusively on AT&T's network, Verizon President and Chief Operating Officer Denny Strigl acknowledged the company has "seen an impact" on the rate of subscribers porting numbers to and from Verizon Wireless.

However, Strigl said, the company last week returned to adding two cellular customers for every one that it loses.

On the wireline side, revenues declined 1.1 percent to $12.6 billion, as Verizon kept losing former MCI long-distance customers and traditional copper phone lines.

However, retail customers in Verizon's local-phone service area spent almost 11 percent more, or an average of $57.47 per month, as they signed up for broadband Internet service via fiber optics.

The fiber-optic broadband service, FiOS, added 203,000 subscribers in the quarter for a total of 1.1 million. Of those, 515,000 were also signed up to get TV through the fiber, a tenfold increase from a year ago.

For the first time, Verizon signed up more subscribers to get broadband Internet service through FiOS than through the copper lines for DSL, or digital subscriber line.

It added just 85,000 DSL subscribers, down from 239,000 in the first quarter.

"Frankly, we weren't as focused as we used to be on DSL for the quarter," Strigl said. "We have taken a lot of the technicians and the service reps that used to work DSL and tried to quickly get them up to speed on FiOS."

Strigl said the company aims to get DSL customer recruitment numbers back up.

Flexible Fiber permits precise CO2 laser delivery.

2007-07-26T23:03:00.000-04:00

OmniGuide® Launches the OtoBeam Flexible CO2 Laser Fiber Product Line for Otology

July 10, 2007

For the first time, safety and precision of CO2 laser energy can be delivered through a user-friendly, flexible fiber for otology surgery.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. July 10 -- OmniGuide, Inc. (www.omni-guide.com) today announced the commercial availability of its new OtoBeam flexible CO2 laser fiber and intuitive handpiece product line for use in otology procedures. The clinical benefits of CO2 laser energy namely precision cutting and coagulation with minimal thermal spread previously had limited applications in otology due to the absence of a flexible delivery system. OmniGuide's breakthrough flexible CO2 laser fiber product for the first time allow this beneficial energy source to be placed at the surgeon's fingertips for accurate control when operating on the delicate structures of the middle and inner ear. OmniGuide's OtoBeam CO2 laser fiber technology opens the way for the broad use of CO2 lasers in otology applications.

Annually, approximately 30 million people are diagnosed with hearing loss due to otosclerosis, and 300,000 people in the U.S. suffer hearing loss as a result from otosclerosis. CO2 laser energy has been widely established as a precise and safe laser wavelength due to rapid absorption by the water-like perilymph present in the inner ear, resulting in minimal thermal spread. These characteristics make the CO2 laser a highly desirable tool in stapedectomy procedures. To date however, the use of CO2 lasers in such procedures has been severely limited due to the absence of a flexible fiber. OmniGuide's breakthrough photonic bandgap fiber technology allows this beneficial laser energy to be guided through a flexible fiber.

Anand K. Devaiah, MD, Assistant Professor in the Department of Otolaryngology at Boston University School of Medicine, performed some of the first otology procedures with the OtoBeam fiber. According to Dr. Devaiah, "The OmniGuide OtoBeam flexible fiber attached to a CO2 laser is an effective and adaptable tool for use in stapedectomy. By reducing the risk to the inner ear with laser energy that does not penetrate beyond perilymph, the safety of CO2 laser energy can be coupled with the ease of fiber delivery."

Prof. Yoel Fink, OmniGuide's cofounder further commented that, "The OtoBeam product line is the result of a major technology breakthrough in our photonic bandgap fiber technology. We believe that the OtoBeam flexible CO2 laser fiber provides the surgeon with a flexible, precise, safe, and intuitive device in stapedectomy procedures. The OtoBeam fiber offers unparalleled accuracy and a high degree of control over penetration into target structures and formation of the footplate rosette. These attributes are critical in stapes surgery."

About OmniGuide Technology

The OmniGuide OtoBeam and BeamPath systems are FDA-cleared devices, and have treated over 600 patients in approximately 100 U.S. medical facilities. CO2 laser energy offers unparalleled precision and a high degree of control over penetration into soft tissue. These attributes are critical in otology, laryngology, head and neck surgery, and pulmonology procedures for which there is the potential to damage delicate untargeted structures. 20,000 CO2 lasers have been deployed in operating rooms throughout the world. However, until now, CO2 lasers have limited applications to invasive surgery due to the absence of a fiber delivery system at their wavelength of operation.

The key to OmniGuide's technology is a revolutionary photonic bandgap fiber that was originally invented and developed at MIT. The company holds an exclusive license from MIT and has added an extensive portfolio of related US and international patents. The technology was first published in Nature in 2002.

Learn more about there products here.

Fiber to the premises: Eight lessons learned

2007-07-26T20:27:00.000-04:00

More than 1,000 communities in North America currently enjoy FTTP deployments as their service infrastructure. Although this number represents only a small fraction of the homes in the U.S.—around 1%—clear lessons have emerged as to which critical factors lead to the success or failure of these deployments.

By David Russell, Calix

Twelve years ago, seven of the world's largest telephone companies came together in the Full Service Access Network Group (FSAN) to develop the first standards for FTTP technology. At that time, deploying fiber to residences was much talked about—but certainly not cost effective.

FSAN grew over time to encompass 23 network operators with more than 450 million subscribers. The group initially developed an ATM-based standard known as broadband passive optical network (BPON) and later an Ethernet-based standard known as Gigabit PON (GPON), or ITU G.984.

Today, we are witnessing the fruition of this vision. FTTP is now cost effective and considered an absolute necessity for the survival of telephone companies competing against cable multiple-systems operators (MSOs). With FTTP now serving more than 1 million subscribers in North America, it is finally hitting the inflexion point in the growth curve.

More than 80% of North American FTTP deployments are based on the FSAN standards. Although BPON initially dominated the market, GPON now is eclipsing the earlier standard, much like DVD replaced VHS. U.S.-based FTTP deployments can be grouped into six major types, each with its own market drivers and unique characteristics. But underpinning all successful deployments are some common lessons.

FTTP deployment type 1: Verizon

For obvious reasons, most of the press attention in North America has focused on the FTTP deployments by Verizon. Verizon today accounts for the majority of FTTP deployments in North America and represents the world's largest FTTP project aside from NTT's in Japan. Verizon aims to deliver a complete communications, information, and entertainment package to subscribers in the major metropolitan areas it serves. The carrier delivers its services to geographically targeted areas in its footprint, regardless of whether the homes are in greenfield or brownfield areas.

The Verizon deployments underscore three key lessons that can be learned from all successful FTTP projects in North America:
Lesson 1: Offer multiple services to consumers in packages. Service bundling is a big hit with consumers and has proven to lower churn.

Lesson 2: Create strong marketing and branding around the FTTP offering. Competition among service providers is intense. Most consumers are not "techies" but base their decisions on marketing—and customer service.

Lesson 3: Provide one-of-a-kind services and content. Selling "me too" video or voice services does not provide long-term differentiation. Unique video content can be the difference between mediocre and great; just look at DIRECTV's "NFL Ticket."

FTTP deployment type 2: ILEC greenfields

The Verizon deployment is unique among those by large ILECs in its focus on overbuilding areas of existing copper plant. The other large ILECs (AT&T, Qwest, Embarq, and others) consider FTTP primarily for new builds. These companies have proven that FTTP is more cost-effective than copper for new construction—even when no incremental services are offered over FTTP. However, these largest ILECs have struggled to define and execute a consistent approach to video services, which has had a negative impact on take rates and overall rollout of FTTP. This negative impact highlights a fourth key lesson learned from successful FTTP deployments:
Lesson 4: Get the video service right. FTTP deployments are defined by the successful rollout of video services. Video is sticky and is a low-margin leader for high-margin data and voice services.

FTTP deployment type 3: Developer integrators

Even with the depressed housing market in the United States, more than 1.5 million new homes will be built in 2007. Most new home construction is taking place in California, Florida, and other sunbelt states. Today, more than 50% of all new homes are built in master planned communities. A new type of service provider has emerged to provide a complete package of voice, data, and video services to these self-contained communities. These include companies active across many states, such as PrimeVision and Zoomy Communications, as well as companies with more of a geographic focus, such as Greenfield Communications in the west and OpenBand in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area.

A recent study by market research firm Render, Vanderslice and Associates found that FTTP is becoming the dominant technology for serving master planned communities. From the developers' perspective, FTTP provides an additional amenity to attract buyers to the property. Increasingly, however, it is the consumer who is demanding the most up-to-date communications and entertainment infrastructure. Many home buyers in these new planned communities are moving from areas with broadband services, and they are demanding the best technology possible in their new homes.

This consumer-driven demand brings to light another key lesson:
Lesson 5: Consumers will use the bandwidth available to them. Operators wishing to build loyal customers should provide generous data bandwidths over FTTP. Limiting bandwidths to DSL or cable modem rates depreciates the value proposition of FTTP.

FTTP deployment type 4: Independent telephone companies in rural/exurban areas

Ironically, residents of major metropolitan areas often are envious when they hear about the services available to residents in many rural areas. Independent telephone companies have been among the most innovative operators in rolling out new video services such as IPTV over FTTP networks. Today, more than 400 rural communities in the United States have state-of-the art FTTP networks provided by their local telephone companies. The broadband loan program administered by the Department of Agriculture has encouraged these deployments to ensure that rural communities are able to enjoy broadband services.

A map of these rural deployments reflects where independent telephone companies dominate the operator landscape: Minnesota, Iowa, Texas, and other states with lower-density areas that the RBOCs were not interested in serving.

But many of these independents now find themselves located near the highest-growth areas of the country. As metropolitan areas have experienced explosive growth over the past 30 years, the exurban areas of many U.S. cities and resort areas now extend out to counties served by independent telephone companies. Examples include FTTP deployments in high-growth perimeters outside of Myrtle Beach, SC, (Horry Telephone) and near San Antonio, TX (GVTC).

Other independents took matters into their own hands. Instead of remaining locked in a slow-growth territory, some independents have chosen to deploy FTTP well outside their ILEC service area to gain access to higher-density and higher-growth communities. By becoming an FTTP CLEC, Oxford Utilities of Maine reinvented itself and is now a major operator in the Portland-to-Augusta corridor.

Lesson 6: The provider that brings fiber to a community first becomes the dominant provider to that community. No other provider is likely to invest the capital required to compete when another operator has already wired the community with fiber.

FTTP deployment type 5: Pure FTTP CLECs

The competitive advantages offered by FTTP have created a new type of competitive-access carrier in many Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities in the U.S. These CLECs have seized on the promise of fiber and built out FTTP networks to both businesses and residences. Many of these operators start with business customers, generate positive cash flow, and then extend their service to nearby residences. Once they have a proven business model in an initial city, these operators will extend the model to other towns and cities in the region. Successful examples include Mahaska of Oskaloosa, IA, and Omnilec of Peoria, IL.

Lesson 7: Serving business customers is a critical component of a successful FTTP deployment. After the collapse of many CLECs during the technology crash in 2000, the media and many investors stopped following the CLEC market. But FTTP has given new life to a whole new generation of highly differentiated operators that own their own fiber networks and are using the FSAN GPON standard to compete effectively against the largest ILECs.

FTTP deployment type 6: Municipalities

The construction of FTTP networks by municipalities has attracted a great deal of media attention. Front-page articles in The Wall Street Journal have chronicled the proposal by Lafayette, LA, to build its own municipal FTTP network. To date, fewer than 40 towns and cities in the U.S. have built or approved construction of city-owned FTTP networks. But increasingly cities and towns are viewing FTTP as a critical component in economic development. Those cities that are not on the list for FTTP construction by an RBOC are searching for alternative providers (a nearby independent or CLEC). If unable to find a private entity to take on the project, some municipalities are opting to build their own networks. On the larger side, for example, Burlington, VT, has successfully rolled out a complete package of high-speed data, voice, and IPTV services to its residents. On the smaller side, the city of Windom, MN, has been very successful in launching its triple-play network over GPON.

Some municipal deployments have not been successful, slowed by political problems and communities not used to operating their own utility and communication services. These failures highlight the final FTTP lesson:

Lesson 8: Do not underestimate the technical expertise required to operate a state-of-the-art network. Successful operators invest in good technical staff and back-office systems for handling technical support, billing, and customer care. Municipalities should not see FTTP as some sort of panacea or quick solution for economic development. But as a last resort, when a municipality is frustrated by a lack of commitment from its incumbent operators, FTTP may be the best choice for assuring its citizens receive quality triple-play services.

FTTP now is moving to the mass-deployment stage. It is still considered cutting edge and the best technology available today, but it is no longer "bleeding edge." The basic tenets of a successful FTTP deployment are known and understood, thanks to the operators that pioneered the deployment of FTTP technology. And these operators now enjoy the position of being the dominant service providers in their chosen markets.

Increasing fiber in cable's diet

2007-07-26T07:14:00.000-04:00

Interesting article here comparing cable's HFC (hybrid fiber-coax) vs. FTTH.

AWG companies announce small form factor MSA

2007-07-25T23:35:00.000-04:00

JULY 24, 2007 -- Planar Lightwave Circuit vendors NEL, Hitachi Cable, Gemfire, Fitel, NEC, and NeoPhotonics have announced the addition of a new option within the Multi-Source Agreement (MSA) for thermally stabilized array waveguide grating modules for a small form factor package configuration.

This small form factor module provides a footprint approximately one third smaller than the original AWG MSA, first published in December of 2002, depending on the configuration, say MSA members. These standardized AWGs provide multiplexing and demultiplexing for DWDM optical equipment through a common interface, allowing equipment manufacturers a choice among several compatible suppliers, simultaneously reducing lead-times and cost, say the companies.

The new small form factor provides all of the benefits of standardization while saving precious board space. Version 2.0 of the MSA, containing descriptions of both the standard and small form factor AWG packages, has now been published. For more information, visit the AWG MSA website at www.awgmsa.com.

"As one of the founding members, we at NEL have been very pleased with the broad industry acceptance of the initial MSA for thermally stabilized AWGs, and we expect this Small Form Factor MSA to be equally successful," asserts Haruki Kozawaguchi, executive director of NEL Corp. He notes that the MSA defines common mechanical features and electrical interfaces for the AWG module, including package dimensions, bolt holes, electrical pin positions and assignments, fiber positions, heater resistance, and firmware. By contrast, optical performance parameters such as insertion loss, crosstalk, and passband are not specified by MSA, says Kozawaguchi. Instead, they are determined individually by the member companies.

AWG technology has advanced greatly since the original AWG MSA was defined in 2002, recalls Seiich Okubo, CTO of Hitachi Cable. "An AWG with the same number of channels and channel spacing can now be put in a package that is only two thirds of the size of the original," he reports. "This new Small Form Factor MSA package will allow equipment manufacturers to utilize this small size while retaining the benefits of a standard mechanical and electrical interface."

Nigel Cockroft, vice president of telecom products at Gemfire Corp. maintains that the new small form factor AWG agreement is a great simplification over the original MSA, "by providing a single slim, compact form factor for two choices of input/ output fiber locations while allowing for either internal or external electronic control. Given the rapidly increasing deployment of AWGs and pressures to minimize system space," he says, "we expect this new design will be very popular and will allow system integrators to move forward with confidence."

It is important that MSA standards keep pace with technology developments, adds G. Ferris Lipscomb, vice president of marketing at NeoPhotonics. He believes the new small form factor MSA enables equipment manufacturers to benefit from the development of small form factor technology, but contends that the original MSA will continue to be supported, "because many systems worldwide are based on that standard."

The thermally stabilized AWG MSA group is an open forum, welcoming applications from AWG manufactures that wish to join.

PON equipment sales up 9%, Ethernet FTTH up 10% in 1Q07

2007-07-25T21:09:00.000-04:00

PON equipment sales up 9%, Ethernet FTTH up 10% in 1Q07

CAMPBELL, California, June 27, 2007—Worldwide passive optical network (PON) equipment sales sequentially grew 9% in the first quarter of 2007, reaching $336 million, says Infonetics Research in its PON and FTTH Equipment and Subscribers report.

Worldwide Ethernet FTTH equipment revenue is also up 10% from 4Q06, hitting $81 million in 1Q07.

The report identifies 4 major trends driving the PON and Ethernet FTTH equipment markets, all related to strong competition:

Service providers are upgrading their networks to compete with cable and satellite providers and to support the demand for video, online gaming, P2P networking, and other bandwidth-intensive applications
Content providers are offering new on-demand and broadband video services that eat up more bandwidth into the home
Residential and commercial developers are trying to outdo the competition with better and more high tech offerings
Municipalities around the world, most notably in Amsterdam, Stockholm, and Dubai, are upgrading their networks to Ethernet FTTH to keep and attract new jobs in an age where access to digital information is paramount

“FTTH component suppliers are constantly innovating to bring down the cost of FTTH ports, making the ROI for service providers who deploy FTTH a lot faster. Meanwhile, service providers continue to successfully sign up FTTH subscribers, both in Asia Pacific and North America. A growing number of service providers are becoming convinced that FTTH is the only way they can continue to supply the applications digital homes will demand over time,” said Jeff Heynen, directing analyst at Infonetics Research.

Other report highlights:

Asia Pacific remains the major action point for PON (accounting for 86% of all subscribers), particularly Japan; Korea is on track to add 700,000 to 800,000 EPON subscribers by the end of 2007
EPON subscribers make up 64% of worldwide subscribers, BPON 33%, GPON 3% in 2006
In North America, Verizon will begin transitioning to GPON in 3Q07, and currently has over 500,000 FiOS TV subscribers
Asia Pacific’s share of PON revenue will decrease in 2008 as Verizon, AT&T, France Telecom, and Telefonica GPON deployments hit volume
Tellabs, with its ongoing shipments to Verizon, maintains its strong lead in BPON revenue market share in 1Q07; Hitachi is a distant 2nd, followed closely by Motorola
Mitsubishi leads in the EPON market, followed by Sumitomo and Fujitsu

Corning develops ultra-flexible fiber optics

2007-07-24T23:44:00.000-04:00

You can read about it on the Corning Website here

By Ben Dobbin, Associated Press

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Corning is finding its way around very tight corners to help high-speed Internet service reach high-rise apartments and condominiums.

The world's largest maker of optical fiber said Monday it has developed a new fiber that is at least 100 times more bendable than standard fiber, clearing a major hurdle for telecommunications carriers drawing fiber into homes.

"This is a game-changing technology for telecommunications applications," said Corning's president, Peter Volanakis. "We have developed an optical fiber cable that is as rugged as copper cable but with all of the bandwidth benefits of fiber."

Three Corning scientists invented low-loss optical fiber in the early 1970s. The gossamer-thin strands of ultra-pure glass delivering voice, video and data at the speed of light have replaced copper as the backbone of America's telephone and cable television networks and enabled the phenomenal growth of the Internet.

Current optical fiber doesn't carry light well when it is bent around corners and routed through a building, making it difficult and expensive to run fiber all the way to homes and businesses. The ultra-flexible technology allows the fiber to be bent with virtually no signal loss, Corning said.

Corning said the improvements will enable carriers to economically offer high-speed Internet, voice and high-definition TV service to virtually all high-rise buildings.

In standard fiber, the light signal leaks out at bends or turns and "with two 90-degree turns, the signal is lost," Corning spokesman Dan Collins said. "This design relies on nanostructures that serve as a mirror or a guardrail, and as the fiber is turned or bent, the light doesn't leak out. We have wrapped the fiber around a ball point pen and it retains its effectiveness."

Michael Render, a market researcher in Tulsa, said the new product "would be an important breakthrough" in fiber-to-the-home systems.

More than 1% of North American homes are now directly connected to fiber, but many of them are single-family dwellings, Render said.

"There obviously are a large number of people that live in multi-tenant buildings, and improvements in the way to get fiber to those individual living units could be very significant," he said.

Render said the technology would make it easier to bring fiber "all the way to each individual living room, for example, or at least to each floor," instead of taking it only to the basement and then using existing wiring to reach the living unit.

There are more than 25 million high-rise apartment homes in the United States and more than 680 million worldwide. "The high cost of installation and difficulty in delivering fiber to the home made this market unappealing to most providers," Volanakis said in a statement.

Corning formed a working team with New York-based Verizon Communications in February to tackle the problems of installing fiber in multiple-dwelling buildings. Verizon is the only major U.S. phone or cable company to aggressively draw fiber to existing homes.

"This fiber technology will enable us to bring faster Internet speeds, higher-quality high-definition content and more interactive capabilities than any other platform which exists today," said Paul Lacouture, a Verizon Telecom executive.

Verizon makes tiny dent in TV rollout

2007-07-24T23:11:00.000-04:00

Boston Business Journal - July 6, 2007

by Todd Wallack

Boston Business Journa

Verizon Communications Inc., which began selling TV service in Massachusetts last year with great fanfare, still has a long way to go to overtake Comcast Corp., the state's largest cable TV provider.

Verizon (NYSE: VZ) had 11,983 video customers as of Dec. 31 -- about the same number as Shrewsbury's municipal cable operator and far less than rivals Comcast and RCN Corp., according to documents filed with state regulators. RCN Corp. had more than 63,000 subscribers and Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA) had 1.6 million.

The figures underscore the fact that despite all the attention Verizon's launch has garnered, it will take Verizon time to secure local franchises, build out its new fiber-optic network and lure customers away from cable and satellite providers. Indeed, Verizon's FIOS TV service is still only available to 280,000 of the state's 2.5 million households, up from about 200,000 at year-end. And it took cable providers decades to build their networks and customer bases. Verizon first launched video service in Woburn on Jan. 24, 2006, and has since rolled out the service to 43 other cities and towns in the state.

"There is nothing you wouldn't expect in the first year of a rollout,'' said Verizon spokesman Phil Santoro. He said Verizon has exceeded its internal expectations for sales in the state. The company hasn't publicly announced any targets for Massachusetts sales.

Comcast spokesman Jim Hughes, though, said the figures show Comcast is continuing to dominate the state's pay TV business.

"Verizon is playing catch-up while we continue to innovate and to grow our business here in Massachusetts,'' Hughes said.

Regardless, Comcast and other providers are watching Verizon closely. Verizon, the state's largest phone company, already has an enormous base of phone and Internet customers, a well-known brand name and enormous marketing muscle, which could help it expand quickly. Verizon is marketing its FIOS service through television, radio and print ads, as well as direct mail and door-to-door sales. Meanwhile, cable providers are trying to encroach on Verizon's traditional turf by offering phone service. And both cable and phone providers have long competed head-to-head by offering high-speed Internet service.

So far, Verizon has signed up fewer video customers in Massachusetts than in several other states it serves. According to the company's own figures, the firm had a penetration rate of 6 percent in Massachusetts as of year-end, compared to a penetration rate of 9 percent overall.

But Santoro said the figures are skewed because Verizon ramped up service earlier in many other states. Indeed, in most of the towns Verizon served last year in Massachusetts, it only started offering service in the second half of the year, giving it less time to sign up customers. Santoro also said it's important to factor in how much money Verizon is spending on marketing in Massachusetts compared to other states. But he refused to divulge those figures.

Verizon has fought to keep its local subscriber figures under wraps, refusing to tell reporters and asking the state to keep the numbers confidential; Verizon said it needs to keep the data secret to avoid tipping off competitors about its roll-out. But other cable providers opposed the request, saying the figures have long been public for other cable TV providers. And in a ruling last month, the state Department of Telecommunications and Cable rejected Verizon's request. DTC Commissioner Sharon Gillett pointed out that figures for individual towns were already publicly available from each municipality, and cable providers had a good idea where Verizon stood.

"Since the numbers are either generally known to the industry or easily acquired through appropriate means, the number of subscribers Verizon serves in a particular community is not a trade secret," Gillett said.

According to the state filings, Verizon signed up the largest number of customers in Woburn and Reading, where it has offered the service the longest. In Woburn, it had 1,355 customers. And it had 1,365 in Reading. By contrast, Verizon had only a handful of customers in towns like Natick and Littleton, where it just launched service in December.

Nationwide, Verizon said it had signed up nearly 500,000 FIOS TV customers in 11 states nationwide as of June 20. Verizon also signed up another 618,000 customers for DirecTV's satellite service by the end of March. Verizon declined to provide comparable figures for Massachusetts.

See a related article here about FiOS coming to Rockland, MA

Ladies and Gentlemen...Here's Fiber

2007-07-24T21:45:00.000-04:00

The pupose of this blog will be to discuss, debate, inform, discover, learn, post & read about the latest fiber optic news, products, science, companies, jobs, etc.

This is not just for the telecommunications industry, but for research, medical, industrial, security and any other industries that use fiber optics. We can all learn from each other and we can better our own professions and products by learning about what others are doing.

Stephen