Friday Network News: July 6
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Friday Network News: July 6

Capacity brings you the latest network news. If you have network developments you'd like us to share, please email robert.anderson@capacitymedia.com or tweet us @capacitymag

Level 3 has launched a managed hosting data centre service in Latin America. The Dynamic Enterprise Computing service is claimed to offer customers the flexibility to define their computing needs and pay according to resource usage, with guaranteed resource availability. It is designed to offer virtual computing, storage and security to customers in the region.

The Bolgtanaga-Cinkasse International Fibre Connectivity Project which runs from Ghana, through Togo and Burkina Faso has been completed, according to Ghana Business News. Vodafone Ghana, which is in charge of the 120km project, said that it will allow for the “free flow of the internet bandwidth in Ghana to the rest of the West African sub-region”. Work on the project first began in November 2011 and was carried out in collaboration with Ghana’s Ministry of Communications.

Colt has expanded its network infrastructure in Spain to reach the cities of Zaragoza, Castellón de la Plana, Sevilla and Malaga and improved the speed of its low latency route from Madrid to other European financial hubs. The network expansion consists of four new PoPs connected to the Colt network, providing services to enterprises, carriers and channel partners in those areas. Colt has also deployed Ethernet First Mile technology within key Spanish business areas to provide SMEs or offices of major enterprises with bandwidth of up to 40Mbps over copper.

NTT is claiming to have developed the world’s highest density multi-fibre optical fibre cable for outdoor optical fibre networks. NTT’s Access Network Service Systems Laboratories claims to have succeeded in increasing to an ultimate fibre density of optical fibre cable by using bending loss insensitive optical fibre (BIF) and novel optical fibre ribbon. The cable will come into practical use by NTT East and NTT West in late July 2012 and is expected to improve installation workability and effective use of infrastructure.

Reliance Globalcom and Iraq Telecommunications and Post Company (ITPC) have launched the Al-Faw cable to connect Iraq with the Middle East, Asia, Europe and North America. The cable has a design capacity of 680Gbps with two diverse routes, and launches initially with 50Gbps on each route to cope with existing demand. The two routes will be connected to the Falcon undersea fibre-optic networks which are owned by Reliance Globalcom.

The cooperation model submitted by Deutsche Telekom and NetCologne in January has been approved by Germany's Federal Network Agency following some revisions. The original cooperation involved Deutsche Telekom ordering a specific number of fibre-optic lines from NetCologne and leasing a contingent of VDSL lines to the company in exchange. Changes include granting companies the right to terminate the agreement if they are able to use new fibre-optic lines as an alternative, reduction in the minimum number of VDSL lines smaller companies are required to book and an increase of the monthly charge by 50 cents per line. Deutsche Telekom intends to roll out FTTH to eight more towns and cities this year having already provided FTTH to 168,000 households in 10 German towns and cities in 2011.

US provider C Spire Wireless has selected Alcatel-Lucent to deploy the first phase of its 4G LTE network, which covers 20 Mississippi markets. The $60 million investment will provide coverage over 2,700 square miles with 360 cell sites. An estimated 1.2 million people will have access to the service. Included in the deployment will be Alcatel-Lucent’s base stations, IP mobile backhaul, wireless packet core, and IP multimedia subsystem network core solutions. This will allow C Spire to offer advanced IP-based services including Voice over LTE.

Network testing vendor Ixia has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire network test system developer BreakingPoint Systems for $160 million. Ixia said that the acquisition will enable it to provide an end-to-end solution that monitors, tests and optimises converged networks. The agreement is subject to adjustment based on BreakingPoint’s net working capital and cash at closing, with the transaction anticipated to close in the third quarter of 2012, subject to closing conditions and approvals.

Belgacom has extended the roll-out of its 4G network to five additional cities in Belgium, just over a year after it launched its first 4G service in the country. The operator now offers its 4G network to Antwerp, Ghent, Leuven, Liége and Namur. 4G has been tested successfully for over a year at the University Hospital of Brussels for business customers, and the company has now taken the step to open its 4G networks to most of its subscriber base.

SFR has reached an agreement with the Paris transport authority, the RATP, to provide 3G and 4G services in the city’s metro train system, including in stations, on platforms and in trains. The agreement is the first signed by the RATP and includes the deployment of passive infrastructure, like antennas. 3G services will be launched in Autumn at Chatelet and Gare de Lyon with SFR planning to cover all of the stations of Metro Line 1 and the vast majority of stations on RER lines A and B in 2013. By the end of 2014, SFR plans to make 3G and 4G available in 170 network stations, offering services to 75% of travelers. All stations will be equipped by the end of 2015.

LIME has launched an HSPA+ network on the British Virgin Islands, marketing the service as 4G. The network offers download speeds of 21.1Mbps and is the latest of several HSPA+ launches made across the Caribbean by the company in recent months. LIME, which competes with Digicel and CCT Wireless, is claiming to be the first company to launch the technology in the region.

Telefónica and Middle Eastern carrier Etisalat have entered into an agreement to collaborate across a range of digital services. The two companies will collaborate to develop opportunities in M2M, financial services, device procurement, cloud computing, video services, digital advertising, eHealth and OTT communications. In addition, Telefónica and Etisalat will support the efforts of web company Mozilla to develop a mobile operating system to compete with Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS, the HTML5-based Firefox OS. The agreement develops a strategic partnership first signed between Telefónica and Etisalat in 2011.

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