Telecompaper Headlines

US, China account for 50% of internet attack traffic - study

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:57:00 +0200

(Telecompaper) Online content delivery specialist Akamai Technologies has released its inaugural 'State of the Internet' report. During Q1, Akamai observed attack traffic originating from 68 unique countries around the world. The US and China were the two largest attack traffic sources, accounting for nearly 50 percent of observed traffic in total. The top ten ports saw approximately 90 percent of the observed attack traffic, with more two-thirds of the traffic likely related to the Conficker worm. A number of new submarine cable projects were announced or deployed in the first quarter that are expected ultimately to improve internet connectivity for countries in Africa, Europe, South America and the Caribbean, and Oceania. New Wimax projects and deployments will bring broadband wireless connectivity to countries in Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia, and the former Soviet Union. Fiber-to-the-home efforts announced in the first quarter will benefit users in New Zealand, Australia, Bali, Latvia, Scotland, and England. The first quarter also saw nominal advances in IPv6 adoption, including seven more country-level domains enabling their DNS servers for IPv6. In the US, and countries around the globe, "stimulus funding" was allocated in Q1 to help improve broadband availability in rural areas. Through its globally-deployed server network, and by virtue of the billions of requests for Web content that it services on a daily basis, Akamai has developed a unique level of visibility into the connection speeds of those systems issuing the requests, and as such, of broadband adoption around the globe. Akamai observed a nearly five percent increase (from Q4 2008) globally in the number of unique IP addresses connecting to Akamai's network.

Russian government, Sistema reach deal on Svyazinvest stake

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:15:00 +0200

(Telecompaper) Russia's government and CIS holding AFK Sistema have agreed on the acquisition of Sistema's stake in Russian state-owned telecommunications operator Svyazinvest, according to Russian newspaper Kommersant citing an unnamed government official and a letter from the Communications Minister to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. The letter mentioned that Sistema will hand over a 25 percent stake plus one share of Svyazinvest and a 50 percent stake in mobile operator SkyLink to the Russian government in exchange of a 23 percent stake in fixed-line operator MGTS (Moscow City Telephone Network).

Vivendi confirms in talks to buy Zain Africa operations

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 08:38:00 +0200

(Telecompaper) France-based media and telecom conglomerate Vivendi has formally confirmed it was holding talks to buy a controlling stake in the African mobile phone businesses of Africa and Middle East mobile operator Zain, as it seeks to ramp up its exposure to emerging market. In a statement Vivendi confirmed its interest for acquiring a majority stake in the Zain group's telecommunications activities in Africa, in line with its clearly defined strategy of seeking growth opportunities in emerging countries. The company said this acquisition would enable Vivendi to capitalise on its experience of developing mobile telephony in Africa, but at this stage there is no certainty that the discussions currently in progress will lead to a successful outcome. In any event, Vivendi said it will examine this investment according to its usual profitability criteria and will adhere strictly to its usual principles of financial discipline. Meanwhile, the Financial Times cited sources close to the negotiations that Vivendi made an informal offer to Zain this week, which valued the African assets at USD 10 billion-USD 11 billion. The sources claim that the French media and telecoms company was considering purchasing a majority stake in Zain's African businesses of between 51 and 65 percent. Zain has mobile operations in 15 African countries since acquiring Celtel, for USD3.4 billion in 2005.

Samart selects Alcatel for TOT's IP broadband project

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 07:36:00 +0200

(Telecompaper) Alcatel-Lucent has been chosen by Thai operator Samart Telcoms to supply an intelligent optical network to support state-owned operator TOT's IP broadband project. Alcatel-Lucent will provide Samart Telcoms with an integrated service allowing TOT to meet the increasing number of users while supporting the bandwidth demands driven by 3G services. Alcatel-Lucent will help Samart Telecoms in network roll-outs, project execution and network maintenance. Under the terms of the contract, Alcatel-Lucent will provide an intelligent optical core products based on its 1678 Metro Core Connect and Optical Multi-Service Node systems. This service will use generalised multi-protocol label switching/automatically switched optical network. Long-haul transmission will be ensured by the Alcatel-Lucent 1626 Light Manager that provides fully-tunable and reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplex architecture. The Alcatel-Lucent system, managed by the Alcatel-Lucent 1350 network management, will position Samart Telecom to deliver TOT an advanced, high-capacity optical network infrastructure for TOT's business and residential users at the lowest cost per transported bit.

Deutsche Telekom, Fraunhofer test LTE CoMP technology

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 22:25:00 +0200

(Telecompaper) T-Mobile Germany, Deutsche Telekom Laboratories, and the Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute (HHI) demonstrated for the first time interference-free real-time downlink transmission simultaneously from two base stations to two mobile terminals in two overlapping mobile cells. The system used for this is known as Coordinated Multi-Point Transmission (CoMP) among experts and is considered a key technology for the future mobile communications standard LTE-Advanced. If interference is likely, base stations can jointly pre-process the information for several users prior to transmission. As a result of the pre-processing, signals are constructively overlaid at the desired user terminal but are eliminated at the antennas of other users. A terminal in a CoMP network thus behaves as if it were in an isolated cell because it is no longer interrupted by the data traffic in neighbouring cells. This process considerably improves reception especially in the overlapping regions of the cells, which is where interference is highest. Consequently, all available frequencies can be reused in each cell of a network without restriction and yet the same capacity is achieved as in an interference-free network. The research work was sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) as part of EASY-C, a joint German research project involving partners from the industry, small and medium-sized companies, research institutes, and universities.

Ericsson wins USD 5 bln managed services deal from Sprint

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:19:00 +0200

(Telecompaper) US operator Sprint has signed a seven years, mobile and wireline network services agreement with Ericsson. The move delivers operational efficiencies for Sprint while further expanding Ericsson's network services business in North America. The agreement, with an option for renewal, will result in payments for services valued at between USD 4.5 billion and USD 5 billion over the seven-year term of the contract. The transaction calls for about 6,000 Sprint employees to begin performing their network functions as Ericsson employees sometime in the third quarter of this year. Under the agreement, Sprint retains full ownership and control of its network assets, and solely owns network strategy and investment decisions, while customers will continue to work directly with Sprint employees as their primary contact, as Sprint retains full control of the customer experience, customer technical support and services review plus it retains technology and vendor selections. Ericsson assumes responsibility for the day-to-day services, provisioning and maintenance for the Sprint-owned CDMA, iDEN and wireline networks, while optimising Sprint's multi-vendor inventory of assets such as spare parts and transmission equipment, and provide processes and tools for managing the national network platforms and operational support systems. The transferred employees will become part of Ericsson Services Inc., a wholly-owned Ericsson subsidiary based in Overland Park, Kansas, a move that retains jobs in the United States. No force reductions are currently contemplated as a result of this agreement. Sprint expects to immediately benefit from Ericsson's leadership and best-in-class economies of scale in network services.

Ericsson, Telecom Italia launch Eco-Smart solar site trial

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:24:00 +0200

(Telecompaper) Ericsson and Telecom Italia have launched a solar site service trial. Leveraging flexible solar panels, the Eco-Smart service can generate up to 100 percent of the energy required to power a site in the same land space as a traditional site. The Eco-Smart service features an elliptical support structure coated with flexible solar panels wrapping up the antenna. The service supports 2G, 3G or LTE technologies and can be deployed in multi-vendor environments. The trial is carried out in the Italian city of L'Aquila.

E-net wins Irish government contract to manage MANs

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:24:00 +0200

(Telecompaper) Irish communications minister Eamon Ryan has appointed E-net to manage and operate phase II of the Metropolitan Area Networks, (MANs), Programme. MANs are state owned, telecommunications networks located in towns and cities throughout the country. These optic fibre, open access networks are offered to telecommunication service providers, on a wholesale basis, to enable them to provide high-speed broadband services to their customers without them having to build their own networks. As manager and operator e-net will offer a variety of products to service providers so they in turn can deliver high speed broadband services to their retail customers. These products will include wholesale duct space, dark fibre, co-location facilities and managed services, whichever the customers wants or the market demands. Under Phase II of the MANs Programme fifty nine MANs covering sixty five towns have been constructed at a cost of approximately EUR 98 million. A further MAN is under construction in Kinsale which is expected to be completed in early 2010. Phase I of the Programme involved the construction of twenty seven MANs.

BT accelerates super-fast broadband roll-out

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:08:00 +0200

(Telecompaper) BT has announced the next locations to receive super-fast fibre broadband, covering over one million homes and businesses. The accelerated roll-out of fibre broadband will give 1.5 million homes access to these services by early-summer 2010. Of these, one million will have access by March 2010, a doubling of the original pace of deployment. A total of 69 locations across England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales will benefit from this latest phase of BT's investment programme. The company launched its fibre pilots in Muswell Hill, London and Whitchurch, South Wales at start-July. The latest roll-out falls within its plans to invest GBP 1.5 billion to make super-fast broadband available to 10 million homes by 2012.

Deutsche Telekom confirms VDSL deals with Vodafone, 1&1

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 12:17:00 +0200

(Telecompaper) Deutsche Telekom has officially confirmed VDSL resale agreements with United Internet subsidiary 1&1 and with Vodafone Germany. It has already signed a contract with Vodafone, and reached agreement with 1&1. They have agreed a price of EUR 25.36 per month with 48-month contracts and EUR 26.28 per month with 12-month contracts.