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Motorola Announces Q4 Estimates
Motorola announced preliminary estimates of fourth quarter 2006 financial results. Sales are estimated to be in the range of $11.6 to $11.8 bn. The fourth quarter will represent Motorola's 24th consecutive quarter of positive operating cash flow. The shortfall in both sales and earnings occurred in the mobile devices segment. Mobile Devices unit sales were approximately 66 mn units, up 23% from the third quarter of 2006 and up 48% compared to Q4 of 2006.

Alcatel-Lucent Buys UTRAN
Alcatel-Lucent, announced the acquisition of Nortel's UMTS radio access business (UTRAN) and related assets. Nortel received a closing cash payment of $320 mn. With this acquisition, one in four UMTS operators-about 40 customers around the world-use Alcatel-Lucent UMTS solutions. Together with strengthened R&D and a broad products and solutions portfolio, Alcatel-Lucent is now uniquely positioned to lead the network technological evolutions from 3G to 4G.

AT&T Acquires BellSouth
AT&T closed its acquisition of BellSouth Corporation thus creating a premier global communications company. The transaction consolidates ownership and management of Cingular Wireless, provider of wireless voice and data services, and yellowpages.com. AT&T will immediately start to implement planned integration process to converge the AT&T, BellSouth, and Cingular wireless and wireline Internet Protocol (IP) networks, combine product portfolios and integrate customer care capabilities.

Cisco to Acquire IronPort
Cisco announced a definitive agreement to acquire the privately held company, IronPort Systems, a leading provider of messaging security appliances, focusing on enterprise spam and spyware protection. IronPort was founded in 2000 and has 408 employees based primarily in San Bruno, California. Under the terms of the agreement, Cisco will pay approximately $830 mn in cash and stock. The acquisition is subject to various standard closing conditions and is expected to close in the third quarter of Cisco's fiscal year 2007.

Ericsson to Acquire Redback
Ericsson and Redback Networks have announced that they have signed an agreement under which Ericsson will acquire Redback for an aggregate price of approximately $1.9 bn. Redback has over 700 carrier customers in more than 80 countries and employs about 800 people, including 500 R&D engineers. Fifteen of the top 20 telephone carriers worldwide use Redback's technology, including broadband routers to manage IP-based data, voice and video services.

Motorola to Acquire Tut Systems
Motorola and Tut Systems announced that the two companies have signed a merger agreement. The transaction has a total equity value of approximately $39 mn. Tut Systems provides carrier-class end-to-end digital video encoding, processing and distribution products. More than 160 service providers worldwide deliver IPTV using Tut System's technology. The integration of Tut Systems' solutions with Motorola's digital video delivery solutions will expand Motorola's ability to help service providers deploy advanced video services.

Cisco and SAVVIS to Launch NGN
Cisco and SAVVIS announced an agreement to enable deployment of a next-generation Internet Protocol (IP) network based on Cisco products and services. This new network will enhance SAVVIS' global application infrastructure and expand its' ability to deliver, IT-Infrastructure-as-a-Service. SAVVIS has begun the planning and deployment of the core and edge infrastructure and plans to begin offering services over the network in mid-2007.

Juniper Achieves Certification
Juniper Networks announced that West Coast Labs has awarded the Checkmark Unified Threat Management (UTM) Level 5 Certification, its highest level of certification for network security products, to Juniper Networks' Secure Services Gateway (SSG) family. It certifies that Juniper Networks' SSG family achieved the highest level of certification by obtaining certification on each of the five UTM feature sets; firewall/VPN/Anti-Virus, Anti-Spyware Gateway, Anti-Spam, URL filtering and Intrusion Prevention System (IPS).

Researchers Achieve 107 Gbps
In cooperation with Micram, the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications and Eindhoven Technical University, Siemens has successfully tested the network of the future. This involved the 100% electrical processing of data rates of 107 Gbits per second and transmission over a 100-mile long fiber-optic route in the US. The record performance was made possible by a newly developed transmission and receiving system.

Sprint Nextel, Nokia in WiMax Pact
Sprint Nextel announced that Nokia has been named a key infrastructure and consumer electronic device provider for its 4G WiMax next generation mobility network. Nokia joins Intel, Samsung and Motorola in creating the advanced network infrastructure and access devices which allow high bandwidth mobile Internet connectivity. Sprint Nextel last August announced the selection of WiMax technology for a next generation wireless network which would utilize the company's extensive 2.5GHz spectrum assets.

Wind River Partners with Kontron
Wind River Systems announced that Kontron, suppliers of embedded computer technology, has joined Wind River as a strategic partner. This partnership will bundle Wind River's carrier-grade Linux with Kontron's next generation of Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture (ATCA), MicroTCA and Advanced Mezzanine Card (AMC) platforms. Using COTS hardware and software enables application developers to simplify the overall product development effort and speed time-to-market of next-generation telecommunications equipment solutions.

Two Standards, One Network
Siemens Networks has developed a technical concept for radio networks. A single base station can be operated simultaneously as a GSM and W-CDMA station, letting the existing GSM infrastructure be leveraged to maximum effect. At the ITU Telecom World/3G World Congress in Hong Kong, Siemens premiered the entire infrastructure for the "One Network" concept. The latest members of the "One Network" product family are the W-CDMA variant for the GSM 900 MHz band and the Surpass hiD 3100 system.

Nokia, Yahoo Extend Relationship
Nokia and Yahoo expanded their relationship to make Yahoo! Go for Mobile 2.0 available on Nokia's wide range of mobile phones operating on the Series 40 platform, the software user interface that powers Nokia's broadest range of mobile devices. Beginning today consumers worldwide can download and enjoy Yahoo! Go for Mobile 2.0 on select Nokia devices. In the first half of 2007, the companies will also make Yahoo! Go available for a wider range of devices.

SK Telecom Selects InterDigital
SK Telecom has chosen InterDigital Communications Corporation to develop an advanced mobility solution which will support nationwide handover for SK Telecom's customers when moving between WiBro and UMTS networks throughout the country. InterDigital's solution will include both the system design and the software solution for dual mode WiBro/UMTS terminal units.

Undersea Cable to Link US, China
Verizon has signed a construction and maintenance agreement with a consortium that includes China Telecom and China Netcom to build the first next-generation undersea optical cable system directly linking the US and mainland China. The new system, to be named trans-pacific express (tpe), can support the equivalent of 62 mn simultaneous phone calls. The system will have a design capacity of up to 5.12 tbps to support future Internet growth and advanced applications.

Geodesic Partners BenQ
Geodesic Information Systems has announced a partnership with BenQ to distribute Mundu for multiple BenQ smartphone models scheduled for release in 2007. According to the partnership, users of BenQ phones would be able to use Mundu for chatting with their friends across major public instant messaging networks, across languages and platforms. The two companies will jointly promote bundled products and have yet to announce the schedule for release.

Alcatel-Lucent's WiMax Pilot
Alcatel-Lucent has announced that it has been selected by OLF, the Norwegian oil industry association, to carry out a universal WiMax test in the North Sea to confirm that WiMax technology will improve offshore data communication. The deployment is planned for the first quarter of 2007 and should last for 9 months. OLF is looking to enhance the communication between platforms and moving vessels whatever the weather conditions.

Cisco Sues Apple over iPhone
Cisco has announced that it has filed a lawsuit in the US district court for the northern district of California against Apple, seeking to prevent Apple from infringing upon and deliberately copying and using Cisco's registered iPhone trademark. Cisco obtained the iPhone trademark in 2000 after completing the acquisition of Infogear, which previously owned the mark and sold iPhone products for several years.

WVAS Revenues to Reach $11.5 bn
According to Ovum, wireless value-added services (WVAS) market will grow at a very dynamic and robust pace in the years ahead. With data contributing 21% of total mobile service revenues by June 2006, Ovum forecasts that WVAS will generate over $11.5 bn revenues in China by 2010, a 48% surge from 2006. Messaging will continue to dominate the WVAS sector, contributing to over 63% of total VAS revenues in 2010. SMS, ringback tones and WAP are the fastest-growing services and will continue to be the predominant services in the next few years.

BT Reaches a Milestone
BT has announced that it had gained more than one million registered customers for its VoIP services, BT Broadband Talk and BT Softphone, representing more than a third of BT's consumer broadband base. BT has reached this key milestone more than six months earlier than projected, having set out in July 2006 a target of achieving a million VoIP customers within twelve months. The June 2006 launch of BT Total Broadband placed Internet telephony at the heart of the UK's most comprehensive, value-packed broadband packages.

Ericsson Inks a Deal with RanksTel
Ericsson has signed a supply and delivery contract for PDH microwave radio, MINI-LINK, with Ranks Telecom, a leading PSTN operator in Bangladesh. The Ericsson equipment will be used in the expansion of the operator's transmission network across the country, with particular focus on the areas around Comilla, Khulna, Bogra and Rajshahi. This agreement, the third for MINI-LINK products, reaffirms Ericsson as sole supplier of transmission equipment to Ranks Telecom. The solution will allow RanksTel to increase its subscriber base and network coverage.

IPTV Market Revenues in APAC, 2007
New analysis from global growth consulting company, Frost & Sullivan, Asia Pacific IPTV Market, reveals that revenues in this market-covering 12 major Asia-Pacific countries ex-Japan-is estimated to increase from $353.4 mn in 2006 to $512.4 mn next year. Growing at a CAGR of 37.5% (2006-2013), the region's IPTV market is forecasted to be worth $3.3 bn by end-2013. IPTV is presently available in China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand, and is expected to be introduced in India and the Philippines in 2007.