Ikanos Communications (www.ikanos.com) a developer of silicon and software for broadband solutions, recently teamed up with D2 Technologies (www.d2tech.com) to demonstrate a quadruple play residential gateway (for OEM developers) running D2’s Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) software. The device is an amalgam of Ikanos’ Fusiv Vx180 VDSL2 gateway processor with D2’s vPort VoIP software. Both technologies combined enable a residential gateway to support voice (VoIP), video (IPTV), data (VDSL2) and mobile wireless services. Peter Ahimovic, Director of Marketing at Ikanos, says, “Ikanos’ history dates back to VDSL space focusing on CO and CPE side, first with VDSL1 and VDSL2 standards. Then, in early 2006, Ikanos acquired the network processor and ADSL team from ADI [Analog Devices, Inc.]. Our PHY, or layer one physical interface technology for VDSL1 and VDSL2, now joined ADI’s ADSL PHY technologies. Moreover, we combined our PHY technology with ADI’s Fusive gateway processor technology which took us into the gateway market. We can now offer chips and software to enable services such as high-speed Internet access, VoIP, Telco TV, Wireless LANs, Access Point (News - Alert) router-type functionality, security services, and so forth. We have several new products, such as the Vx170 and Vx180 VDSL2 gateway processor, based on the MIPS32 24KE core produced by MIPS.” “The market dynamics are trending in a way that we feel the need to converge the various pieces found in the digital home domain into a single box solution, a residential gateway, where you will have various means of broadband access, be it VDSL, ADSL, cable or even fiber-to-the-home PON-type technology,” says Ahimovic. “Basically we’ll see converging Infotainment, Security and Broadband Access. The services now terminated within the home are on the infotainment side. This includes all of the video services such as PDR, DVR, and media server-type applications, and of course you use a set-top box so you can display the video content. Then there’s voice – meaning terminating derived fixed-line voice, VoIP or fixed-mobile convergence [FMC] voice. And of course we have to provide security across the services, which includes firewalling, anti-spam, anti-virus, and so forth, since threats will always be coming through the broadband access points. Multiple devices in the digital home will be interconnected through the residential gateway and they’ll use an emerging ITU standard called G.HN, in which ‘HN’ stands for ‘Home Networking.’” “The ITU is creating an umbrella over the home networking standards that are available today,” says Ahimovic, “which are industry consortia-led technologies that currently have some technical pieces in common but don’t interwork at all, such as MoCA [Media over Coax Alliance], HPNA [Home Phoneline Networking Alliance], HomePlug, and so forth. So we’re talking about a sort of ‘super middleware’. We provide software, but we’re in the silicon business. We need to provide devices that can run this ‘super middleware’ and enable these services.” “When people talk about Network Attached Storage [NAS], they’re typically referring to a PC with a shared hard drive,” says Ahimovic. “But we believe that technology will migrate to the gateway. Indeed, our Home Media Gateway [HMG] concept incorporates a SATA [Serial ATA] drive so that it can easily offer NAS [Network Attached Storage] and DVR [Digital Video Recording].” “Today many ISPs provide the broadband access part,” says Ahimovic, “with VoIP-type capabilities, and WiFi access points for distributing the Internet access capability, and so forth. That we see carrying forward. Adding to that you’ll see femtocells, a fixed-mobile convergence technology where you have the ability for your cell phone work within your home by connecting to the network via a femtocell emanating from within the gateway, instead of the larger macro network as is usually the case. The gateway will handle the signaling and the voice traffic over its broadband connection. Basically it’s an IP connection from the gateway to the mobile service provider, and then from the gateway to your phone via the femotcell.” “We believe that femtocells will ultimately be a ‘killer application” for broadband access,” says Ahimovic. “The femtocell opportunity is being driven by increased service coverage in the home for voice, video and data as well as reduced operating costs for the wireless providers. Various opportunities exist to sell femtocells to existing broadband subscribers as well as new deployments.” “You may well ask what happens to the set-top box as all this technology appears,” says Ahimovic. “Today, of course, all set-top boxes are doing the video decoding that typically it’s super set-top box that is doing the DVR and multi-room DVR and so forth. Our vision is that DVR capabilities will be part of the gateway. It’s a device managed by the service provider, and has the ability to turn features on-and-off as desired by the subscriber, so it allows providers to derive additional revenue by offering features on a subscription basis, typically a monthly fee.” “You’ll see centralized content storage, centralized policy-driven management of the home media gateway [HMG] and peer-to-peer distributed storage too,” beams Ahimovic.
Source: tmcnet.com
Thursday, December 27, 2007
AT&T Switches From Tellabs To Ericsson
Light Reading notes that AT&T, who just launched U-Verse in their first BellSouth territory market (Atlanta), has dumped Tellabs in the southeast. The company has discontinued purchasing Tellabs fiber-to-the-curb gear, and instead is now using Ericsson FTTN gear. Telephony Online has more detail on why AT&T is shifting from FTTC to FTTP in the Southeast:
In an interview today, Leopold said AT&T may choose to deploy Ericsson's gear in a configuration very similar to FTTC but based on IP rather than ATM. One of his sources had described to him a scenario in which AT&T would deploy fiber to Ericsson equipment located within a few hundred feet of each home and run VDSL2 the rest of the way, which essentially describes FTTC. The difference is, that 500 feet is IP-based VDSL2, so it fits better into the U-Verse architecture, in that you're getting rid of all the ATM, he said.AT&T's U-Verse deployment area is small for now (only a few hundred homes) as the company tests the service on the former BellSouth network. Source: dslreports.com
In an interview today, Leopold said AT&T may choose to deploy Ericsson's gear in a configuration very similar to FTTC but based on IP rather than ATM. One of his sources had described to him a scenario in which AT&T would deploy fiber to Ericsson equipment located within a few hundred feet of each home and run VDSL2 the rest of the way, which essentially describes FTTC. The difference is, that 500 feet is IP-based VDSL2, so it fits better into the U-Verse architecture, in that you're getting rid of all the ATM, he said.AT&T's U-Verse deployment area is small for now (only a few hundred homes) as the company tests the service on the former BellSouth network. Source: dslreports.com
Public comment sort for VDSL2 Standards
Independent telecommunications body, the Communications Alliance, has unveiled draft standards on customer equipment needed for Very High Speed Digital Subscriber Line 2 (VDSL2) - the next generation of broadband technology.
According to the Communications Alliance, VDSL2 deployment will give businesses and consumers greater ability to use higher bandwidth services such as high definition television, video streaming and interactive gaming over the existing copper telephone network. It can also operate at speeds more than 10 times faster than the ADSL technology most commonly used in Australian broadband services today.The draft standards released by the Communications Alliance are designed to ensure suppliers can provide customer equipment (e.g. broadband modems, PBX systems etc) that will be compatible with the new VDSL2 services when they become available in Australia. For instance, customers could buy broadband modems suitable for their existing ADSL services and not need to replace them when upgrading to VDSL2 in the future.The draft standards have been developed by a Communications Alliance Working Committee of technical experts representing a cross-section of the industry and are aligned with international recommendations as well as local requirements.
Source: itnews.com.au
According to the Communications Alliance, VDSL2 deployment will give businesses and consumers greater ability to use higher bandwidth services such as high definition television, video streaming and interactive gaming over the existing copper telephone network. It can also operate at speeds more than 10 times faster than the ADSL technology most commonly used in Australian broadband services today.The draft standards released by the Communications Alliance are designed to ensure suppliers can provide customer equipment (e.g. broadband modems, PBX systems etc) that will be compatible with the new VDSL2 services when they become available in Australia. For instance, customers could buy broadband modems suitable for their existing ADSL services and not need to replace them when upgrading to VDSL2 in the future.The draft standards have been developed by a Communications Alliance Working Committee of technical experts representing a cross-section of the industry and are aligned with international recommendations as well as local requirements.
Source: itnews.com.au
7 science and technology projects win national awards
SINGAPORE: A possible cancer treatment drug and a technology that allows much faster broadband internet are among the seven entries that won this year's National Science and Technology Awards.
Cancer is Singapore's number one killer, so the development of a compound that tackles cancer cells is significant.
Associate Professor Uttam Surana's work on a possible cancer treatment drug has won him the National Science Award.
He said how cells divide is important because any deviation can affect the health of a cell and, in extreme cases, its ability to survive.
"We've tested a whole variety of cancer cells and a subset of them is quite sensitive to this compound. We have taken these studies to nude mice assays which you can take human cells and create tumours in nude mice. And you treat these mice with the compound and stop the growth of tumour cells," said AP Surana.
The research is at an early stage and the professor from A*STAR's Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology wants to overcome initial problems with the compound in two years, before any clinical trials.
The awards do not just revolve around science research and new knowledge. Infineon Technologies Asia Pacific won the National Technology Award for VDSL2 (Very High Speed Digital Subscriber Line).
The company said the technology enables faster downloading of files by 10 times and uploading by 100 times.
SingTel is currently in talks with the maker and evaluating the technology.
Another recipient of the National Technology Award is a team from A*STAR's Institute for Infocomm Research which spent years developing a coding technology that compresses high quality music into small digital files, using what is called MPEG-4 Scaleable Lossless Coding.
Huang Haibin from A*STAR's Institute for Infocomm Research, said: "This new technology compresses all the information in a small file but all the information is perfectly preserved."
A*STAR aims to sell the technology within six months.
Source: channelnewsasia.com
Cancer is Singapore's number one killer, so the development of a compound that tackles cancer cells is significant.
Associate Professor Uttam Surana's work on a possible cancer treatment drug has won him the National Science Award.
He said how cells divide is important because any deviation can affect the health of a cell and, in extreme cases, its ability to survive.
"We've tested a whole variety of cancer cells and a subset of them is quite sensitive to this compound. We have taken these studies to nude mice assays which you can take human cells and create tumours in nude mice. And you treat these mice with the compound and stop the growth of tumour cells," said AP Surana.
The research is at an early stage and the professor from A*STAR's Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology wants to overcome initial problems with the compound in two years, before any clinical trials.
The awards do not just revolve around science research and new knowledge. Infineon Technologies Asia Pacific won the National Technology Award for VDSL2 (Very High Speed Digital Subscriber Line).
The company said the technology enables faster downloading of files by 10 times and uploading by 100 times.
SingTel is currently in talks with the maker and evaluating the technology.
Another recipient of the National Technology Award is a team from A*STAR's Institute for Infocomm Research which spent years developing a coding technology that compresses high quality music into small digital files, using what is called MPEG-4 Scaleable Lossless Coding.
Huang Haibin from A*STAR's Institute for Infocomm Research, said: "This new technology compresses all the information in a small file but all the information is perfectly preserved."
A*STAR aims to sell the technology within six months.
Source: channelnewsasia.com
Chipset supports VDSL2 testing
Ikanos' fifth generation Fx10050S-5 VDSL2 CPE chipset supports all VDSL2 profiles up to 17.6MHz and offers up to 100/50Mbit/s performance
Sunrise Telecom is using Ikanos' Fx10050S-5 VDSL2 customer premises equipment (CPE) chipset in its latest VDSL transceiver unit-remote terminal (VTU-R) test solution for the SunSet MTT modular platform. When used with the SunSet MTT ACM II modular test set, the Sunrise Telecom solution provides service providers with a range of testing capabilities - from VDSL2 VTU-R modem emulation to 30MHz spectrum noise tests.
The solution is designed for efficient VDSL2 service installation and verification.
A one-button test significantly reduces the up front training and installation time by automatically presenting a summary screen of key metrics, including achieved data rate and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) margin.
Ikanos' fifth generation Fx10050S-5 VDSL2 CPE chipset supports all VDSL2 profiles up to 17.6MHz and offers up to 100/50Mbit/s performance.
'The growing demand for bandwidth, combined with the trend to bundle voice, video and data on a single packet-based network, is increasing the complexity of the network', said Dean Westman, Vice President and General Manager for Ikanos' Gateway Products Group.
'By enabling innovative DSL testing and monitoring solutions, Ikanos is easing service providers' deployments of IPTV and triple-play services worldwide'.
Source: electronicstalk.com
Sunrise Telecom is using Ikanos' Fx10050S-5 VDSL2 customer premises equipment (CPE) chipset in its latest VDSL transceiver unit-remote terminal (VTU-R) test solution for the SunSet MTT modular platform. When used with the SunSet MTT ACM II modular test set, the Sunrise Telecom solution provides service providers with a range of testing capabilities - from VDSL2 VTU-R modem emulation to 30MHz spectrum noise tests.
The solution is designed for efficient VDSL2 service installation and verification.
A one-button test significantly reduces the up front training and installation time by automatically presenting a summary screen of key metrics, including achieved data rate and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) margin.
Ikanos' fifth generation Fx10050S-5 VDSL2 CPE chipset supports all VDSL2 profiles up to 17.6MHz and offers up to 100/50Mbit/s performance.
'The growing demand for bandwidth, combined with the trend to bundle voice, video and data on a single packet-based network, is increasing the complexity of the network', said Dean Westman, Vice President and General Manager for Ikanos' Gateway Products Group.
'By enabling innovative DSL testing and monitoring solutions, Ikanos is easing service providers' deployments of IPTV and triple-play services worldwide'.
Source: electronicstalk.com
Monday, December 24, 2007
DSL Forum announces Broadbandsuite Release 3.0
The DSL Forum has announced the approval of its latest technical report, TR-135 data model for a TR-069 enabled STB and the amendment of the TR-069 - which the forum claims is set to expedite IPTV rollouts and change the way operators manage their IPTV offering.
Closely following the release of BroadbandSuite Release 2.0, these new specifications are cornerstone to the pending Release 3.0, which will address triple-play augmented via VDSL2, GPON and bonded DSL over a QoS-enabled ethernet architecture. Release 3.0 will also provide support for multicast to enable IPTV streaming as well as integrated remote management of set top boxes (STB) and attached storage devices. The full release is tentatively scheduled to be complete in late 2008.
As a key part of Broadbandsuite Release 3.0, TR-135 defines the data model for remote management of digital television (IPTV or broadcast) functionality on STB devices via CPE WAN Management Protocol (CWMP) as defined in TR-069 Amendment 2 and
TR-106. This report provides the data model for describing STB capabilities such as PVR, IGMP, quality of service as well as providing a means to enable video service performance monitoring. General use cases are also described in the report, including standard data model profiles that would typically be seen while remotely managing a device of this nature.
In TR-135, the Auto-Configuration Server (ACS) may perform some initial configuration of a newly installed STB, but its main functions are configuration of STB parameters for trouble management and collection of statistics for quality of service (QoS)/quality of experience (QoE) monitoring.
Established in 1994, the DSL Forum is an international industry consortium of over 200 service providers, equipment manufacturers and other interested parties.
Source: digitalmediaasia.com
Closely following the release of BroadbandSuite Release 2.0, these new specifications are cornerstone to the pending Release 3.0, which will address triple-play augmented via VDSL2, GPON and bonded DSL over a QoS-enabled ethernet architecture. Release 3.0 will also provide support for multicast to enable IPTV streaming as well as integrated remote management of set top boxes (STB) and attached storage devices. The full release is tentatively scheduled to be complete in late 2008.
As a key part of Broadbandsuite Release 3.0, TR-135 defines the data model for remote management of digital television (IPTV or broadcast) functionality on STB devices via CPE WAN Management Protocol (CWMP) as defined in TR-069 Amendment 2 and
TR-106. This report provides the data model for describing STB capabilities such as PVR, IGMP, quality of service as well as providing a means to enable video service performance monitoring. General use cases are also described in the report, including standard data model profiles that would typically be seen while remotely managing a device of this nature.
In TR-135, the Auto-Configuration Server (ACS) may perform some initial configuration of a newly installed STB, but its main functions are configuration of STB parameters for trouble management and collection of statistics for quality of service (QoS)/quality of experience (QoE) monitoring.
Established in 1994, the DSL Forum is an international industry consortium of over 200 service providers, equipment manufacturers and other interested parties.
Source: digitalmediaasia.com
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