Everest Broadband Networks, one of the leaders in the fast-growing building local exchange carrier (BLEC) telecommunications market, today announced its acquisition of Metrocomm International Inc. The acquisition is Everest’s first and is in line with its core strategy of becoming one of the industry’s leading building service providers (BSP) by sustaining aggressive growth through both organic expansion and acquisition. Financial terms were not disclosed.
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Looking to enhance its DSLAM market status, ADC has introduced version 3.0 of its Avidia DSLAM platform. With support for G.SHDSL symmetric business service, the Avidia 3.0 is also a 24-port ADSL subscriber module that can increase chassis density and port power consumption by 40 percent. Avidia is complete with enhanced ATM capabilities including UNI 4.0 and ILMI/PNNI 1.0 for end-to-end SVC support. The platform can also now support broadcast video. For carriers with IP infrastructures, the Ethernet uplink element enables carriers to deliver enhanced data services. Available now, the enhanced platform is currently being utilized by France-based LDCOM for its G.SHDSL capabilities and by Rochester, N.Y.-based Frontier Communications for its T1/E1 IMA backhaul feature to take advantage of its existing copper infrastructure in lieu of new fiber buildouts.

While incremental changes to router technology have made them faster, denser (number of interfaces) and generally more efficient, the router’s basic monolithic architecture, in which a single processor performs all routing calculations, hasn’t changed. This has become more of a hindrance than a help to carriers, ISPs and enterprises looking to extend the reach of their networks while having to cut capital and operations costs.
Because monolithic routers only support a single routed network, large numbers of routers must be deployed in any location servicing multiple customers, networks or network services. Virtual routers attempt to solve this scalability problem using software to share a single route processor among multiple customers, but this approach is wrought with potential hazards and still contains the monolithic route-processing architecture that is the underlying problem. (more…)

In mobile wireless, there’s one inescapable truth: spectrum is finite. Couple that with a shift in Wall Street’s expectations and ongoing growth in minutes of use in voice and data, and the drive to maximize existing infrastructure is essential.

Pressure continues to mount as operators begin offering data services, a market the Strategis Group projects will have a penetration rate of nearly 60 percent by 2007. AT&T’s launch of GSM/GPRS data services and partnership with Cingular to build an overlay GSM network atop its TDMA network will likely be a big mover. CDMA carriers like Verizon and Bell Canada have launched their 1XRTT data networks, and Sprint PCS is not far behind.

Even moves like the FCC’s spectrum cap lift from 45 MHz to 55 MHz are a quick fix; data services will eat up spectrum quickly. While building more base stations is the easy answer, the realities of cost and zoning issues are forcing carriers to examine new alternatives.
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U.S. service providers looking to keep consumers online long enough to sop up excess network bandwidth might follow the example of British Telecom, which is testing its luck with online gambling.

BT’s AOL-like openworld service, which already runs sites on music, games, travel and shopping, among other things, now offers a sports and betting online service. Operated in partnerships with casino operators from Las Vegas and the Isle of Man, the “Sport & Bets” site has sections devoted to casinos, sports betting, lottery and bingo.

“Betting, games and music are a accepted as being the three biggest mass market subscription revenue generators outside, of adult services,” says BTopenworld executive John Raczka. “We have already established leading games and music destination sites in the U.K., and we will soon have a unrivaled offering as an ISP across all three categories.”
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