Archive for June, 2010
China Telecom has added ZTE (Shenzhen: 000063.SZ) to its ongoing FTTH deployment strategy, awarding the vendor a $146 million PON equipment contract.
Joining competitor Ericsson, the deployment of ZTE’s gear will also fuel China Telecom’s aggressive City Optical Network project that will provide Fiber to the Home (FTTH) services with 100 Mbps bandwidth capabilities in major cities and 70 percent of users in towns and cities with 12 Mbps speeds.
For this latest piece of the project, China Telecom will leverage ZTE’s ZXA10 xPON system, which can support a triple-play service mix of high speed data, VoIP, IPTV and traditional cable video.
For more:
- TeleGeography has this article
Carlos Slim’s wireless/wireline consolidation effort to fend off new competition dream came with a hefty price.
The telecom magnate’s wireless operator America Movil (NYSE: AMX) paid $2.12 billion to Telmex Inernacional (NYSE: TII) shareholders that tendered their shares for cash. Slim’s America Movil issued 1.35 billion of its L shares to shareholders who decided to get stock in exchange for their Telmex Internacional shares.
America Movil acquired 93.56 percent of Telmex Internacional, which was below the 95 percent figure it needed to delist from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), but Telmex’s CEO said that “a delisting from New York was imminent.” In addition, America Movil now owns 99.44 percent of Carso Global Telecom shares, which is the second piece of Slim’s asset consolidation effort.
For more:
- Reuters has this article
For the first time since the end of 2008, Point Topic revealed in its latest research at the CommunicAsia trade show that broadband subscriptions rebounded after a year of slow growth.
As of the end Q1 2010, there were 484 million worldwide subscribers, an increase of 14.7 million lines and a more than 3 percent increase in the past three months.
Once again, Asia-Pacific led the charge with 53 percent of overall growth with China taking 45 percent of the overall worldwide total.
Led by aggressive service providers such as China Telecom, which is in the midst of building out a large-scale Fiber to the Home (FTTH) network, China is by far the largest broadband country in the world. And with over with over 112.5 broadband lines, China continues to surpass the U.S., the second largest broadband country.
As of the end of Q1 2010, the U.S. had 87 million broadband lines with “modest” growth seen in the quarter. However, China and the U.S. were still part of the top six in the top 10 broadband ranking-in addition to Japan, Germany, France and the UK-where broadband saw an uptick in growth over Q1 2009.
While fiber-based broadband (Fiber to the Node, Fiber to the Curb/Cabinet and Fiber to the Home) is seeing growth, DSL continues to be the dominant broadband method.
For more:
- Connected Planet has this article
With the ratification of the 803.2ba 40 Gbps and 100 Gbps amendments to the 802.3 standard, the IEEE has put together the framework that vendors and service providers can use to sate consumer and business user demand for higher-rate throughput.
The IEEE’s efforts weren’t done in isolation, however. A collaborative effort between the IEEE P802.3ba 40 Gbps and 100 Gbps Ethernet Task Force and the International Telecommunication Union’s Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) Study Group 15 ensure the new Ethernet rates can be carried over optical transport networks.
For 40 Gbps, the standard established specifications for backplane, cabling, and 100-150 meters, depending on fiber used. In addition, the IEEE standard incorporates a 10 km specification. At 100 Gbps, the standard includes the cabling specification and the 100-150 meters of multimode fiber physical layer specification for 10 and 40 km distances.
By driving more development efforts and new aggregation speeds that will enable 10 Gbps Ethernet network deployments, the IEEE 802.3ba is expected to trigger further expansion of the 40 Gigabit and 100 Gigabit Ethernet technology families. At the same time, the standard will give service providers a blueprint to build from as they try to meet the 100 Mbps requirement for the FCC’s “Connecting America” National Broadband Plan.
One of the things that John D’Ambrosia, Chair, IEEE P802.3ba Task Force, and Director, Ethernet-based Standards, CTO Office, Force10 Networks, said that was different about the 802.3ba standard was the level of end user involvement.
“This project had more end users participation than any other project in IEEE history that I am aware of,” he said. “We had a lot of key individuals coming in from key companies, including Google (NasdaqGS: GOOG), Deutsche Telekom (Other OTC: DTEGY.PK), AT&T (NYSE: T), Verizon (NYSE: VZ), NTT (NYSE: NTT) and the New York Stock Exchange all participating. I liken this project to as more of a pull from the customers whereas 10 Gbps was a push from the producers.”
For more:
- see the release here
Verizon’s (NYSE:VZ) CEO Ivan Seidenberg is not happy about the FCC’s proposal to reclassify broadband as a Title II service. Arguing that the proposed rules are “overbearing,” Seidenberg believes they will inhibit every service provider’s ability to invest in expanding their respective broadband network reach.
During his address to the Economic Club of Washington, Seidenberg said that the FCC is creating “an unimaginative and overbearing set of rules,” adding that the agency’s proposals “will cause uncertainty in the marketplace, create disincentives for investment” and drive out competition.
The FCC’s proposed reclassification idea and net neutrality regulations has been a subject of continual debate. While Internet-driven companies such as Google and Skype favor the proposals, Verizon, AT&T and the National Cable & Telecommunications Association continue to protest the proposed rules.
But telcos and cable operators aren’t the only ones fighting about net neutrality and the Title II reclassification. Congress has also raised red flags about both issues with 74 House of Representative Democrats point out they have “serious concerns” with the FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s proposal, while 171 House Republicans add that the reclassification could have “serious” repercussions.
In an effort to appease both sides of the debate, the FCC met in closed door meetings with lobbyists from both the telco and Internet service provider community this week to come up with a compromise.
For more:
- Bloomberg has this article