Friday Network News: November 9
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Friday Network News: November 9

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



 

Bahrain’s Batelco has upgraded its command centre and Network Operations Centre (NOC) at its headquarters in Hamala. The upgrade comes as part of Batelco’s business continuity plans. In the case of a crisis situation the carrier’s crisis management team will convene to discuss and implement solutions to keep residents connected to local and international networks. The carrier has two alternative command centres located at its Hamala HQ and Batelco’s Telephone House in Salmaniya.


 

 

Softbank’s Wireless City Planning subsidiary has selected Alcatel-Lucent’s network monitoring solution to monitor network quality over it LTE Advanced XGP mobile broadband network. The vendor’s Wireless Network Guardian solution provides real-time data on how elements of the network are performing under the growing data volume generated by different mobile devices and the applications and services they are accessing. This can be used to identify and prevent network issues and plan for future network deployments to increase quality and customer satisfaction. Alcatel is also a supplier for the AXGP network.


 

 

América Móvil’s Mexican subsidiary Telcel has reportedly activated commercial LTE services. BNAmericas reports that Telcel, which dominates the Mexican market, has made services available to customers in a total of nine cities: Mexico City, Guadalajara, Monterrey, Queretaro, Puebla, Ciudad Juarez, Tijuana, Hermosillo and Merida. LTE services are for now restricted to postpaid customers with prepaid options to come in the future, América Móvil CEO, Daniel Hajj, told the publication. The company intends to expand coverage to 26 cities and 65% of the population by April 2013 and has set aside $1 billion of a $3.95 billion network investment between 2012 and 2014 for 4G equipment.


 

 

O3b Networks has signed an agreement with Telecom Cook Islands to provision bandwidth for an additional four islands in the nation’s southern group. The bandwidth will be supplied using O3b’s Medium Earth Orbit satellite constellation and is scheduled for service in the third quarter of 2013. The agreement builds upon one signed in 2011 for the provision of high-speed internet connectivity to Rarotonga. As a result of the extension it is claimed that Telecom Cook Islands will be able to cost effectively distribute bandwidth between Rarotonga, Aitutaki, Atui, Mangaia and Mauke, with each island to receive more than 20X the bandwidth they do today. A fifth island, Mitairo, will receive faster internet via a microwave radio link. 


 

 

CenturyLink has extended its suite of voice and IP services into five additional CoreSite data centres, bringing its coverage to 14 of the company’s sites throughout North America. As a result of the extended relationship CenturyLink will begin to provide services in Reston, VA, Washington DC and Boston, as well as additional service in Los Angeles, beginning in December 2012. CenturyLink will also expand services to CoreSite facilities in the San Francisco Bay area from January 2013. The agreement builds upon CenturyLink’s coverage at CoreSite facilities in Chicago, Los Angeles, San Jose, Denver, Milpitas and New York.


 

 

Asian carrier Pacnet has expanded the coverage of its Pacnet Lightning packet to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, providing low latency routes over numerous Stock Exchanges. The service expansion provides low latency routes over direct fibre access to the Tokyo Stock Exchange, the Osaka Stock Exchange, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and the Singapore Stock Exchange. The service works on its dedicated Ethernet International Private Line (EIPL) circuits on the shortest cable routes of the company’s intra-Asia EAC-C2C and trans-Pacific EAC Pacific submarine cables, offering networking performance and reporting.


 

 

Ugandan ISP Datanet has selected to lease capacity from DiViNetworks using the DiViCloud service. By using the DiViCloud, Datanet will load additional traffic on its existing international link without any loss of information or added latency, according to DiViNetworks. The system is a network of PoPs located at major internet junctions which compacts data as it flows to ISPs. Datanet is already optimising its internet traffic using PeerApp’s web caching solution and DiViNetworks claims its solution will work in conjunction to further compact traffic.


 

 

US carrier AT&T has outlined a $14 billion investment over the next three years to significantly expand its wireless and wireline broadband networks to support IP data growth and demand for mobile application and cloud services. The investment plan named Project Velocity IP (VIP) consists of several individual wireline and wireless initiatives and is designed to expand AT&T's highest potential growth platforms and to drive continued revenue increases from existing and new products. Under the plans, AT&Ts 4G LTE network will be expanded to cover 300 million people in the US by the end of 2014, an increase from the 50 million the carrier originally planned to cover by the end of 2013. AT&T expects 99% LTE coverage in its 22 state wireline service area. 


 

 

Sweden’s Ericsson has demonstrated TD LTE carrier aggregation with China Mobile, achieving peak download speeds of 223Mbps by using two carriers of 20MHz over the same radio unit. The demonstration was carried out in Beijing on equipment operated by Ericsson on China Mobile’s network. The demonstration was intended to show the competitive performance of the TD LTE standard which China Mobile has been pushing globally. An Ericsson spokesperson said that TD LTE devices are not expected to reach the market in volume until 2014, and that it would continue to refine its technology until then.


 

 

Moscow data centre provider IXcellerate and service provider Cirex have jointly announced direct peering connectivity from IXcellerate on the Moscow Internet Exchange (MSK-IX). In a partnership struck with MSK-IX, Cirex will provide fibre channels from IXcellerate’s data centre to MSK-IX and offering peering connectivity from IXcellerate on the exchange point. MSK-IX has a total of 370 members, and it serves as a strategic exchange point for internet traffic in the country, providing both public and private peering, co-location and interconnection management services in Moscow, and a number of other big Russian cities.















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