Alcatel-Lucent has won a contract valued more than $400 million from Reliance Communications, the Indian phone company said.
The agreement will help Reliance, the country’s second largest mobile phone company in terms of subscribers, expand its network to more than 20,000 towns and 600,000 villages, it said in a statement.
“The expansion of our wireless CDMA and GSM network would further enhance our competitive edge,” Anil Ambani, chairman of Reliance Communications, said in the statement.
Currently, Reliance’s communication networks covers over 8,000 towns and 300,000 villages.
Under the contract, Paris-based Alcatel-Lucent will upgrade Reliance’s network with additional mobile switching centers and base stations, the statement said.
“The expansion of the Reliance network, particularly in rural areas, will help improve the lives of millions in India, and is further evidence of our commitment to meeting the communications needs of high-growth economies,” the statement quoted Alcatel-Lucent CEO Patricia Russo as saying.
Over the past year, India has emerged as the world’s fastest growing mobile phone market, adding nearly 6 million new connections every month. The rapid expansion of the country’s telecom sector has created new opportunities for companies with expertise in building communication equipment and infrastructure.
Earlier this month, Finland-based Nokia Siemens Networks won a $900 million contract from Reliance Communications’ bigger rival, Bharti Airtel, to help expand its communications network.
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France Télécom (FT) is taking Paris city hall to court over plans for what it calls an ‘unfair’ free Wi-Fi service in the city. The Paris authorities are looking to provide free Wi-Fi access in libraries, parks and museums in the capital from mid-July, but FT argues the plans violate rules barring local authorities from providing ‘unfair’ competition to private companies. The telco told Agence France-Presse it filed its complaint about the service on 28 March this year, basing its argument on a clause in the code governing regional authorities, which is aimed at preventing ‘unfair competition between (service) operators and local authorities.’ The incumbent claims city hall is forbidden from operating its own public telecoms network unless (a) it agrees to provide access for all operators to use the system or (b) if the actual tender for the provision of the service attracted no bids in the first place. However, in February 2007 French mobile operator SFR was awarded the contract to run the 400 hotspots being deployed, while Alcatel-Lucent won the equipment supply contract. FT, which has its own network of 2,250 commercial hotspots in Paris, now argues that the European Commission set a precedent when it prevented the Czech capital Prague from setting up a free Wi-Fi network in 2005 on competition grounds.
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Alcatel-Lucent said that it is part of a group of companies that won a $20 billion contract with the US government to develop a communications network for federal offices.
The Networx program, announced in March, will stretch over the next 10 years.
The consortium is being led by Qwest Communications International.
As part of the US government contract, Qwest and the rest of the consortium will offer voice, data and video services to federal agencies.
Alcatel-Lucent shares slipped 0.9% to 10.25 euros ($13.99) in Paris.
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DiBcom, a France-based mobile TV semiconductor maker, has received another $27 million in its fifth round of funding. The funding was led by French bank NATIXIS (which put up about half of the investment), with remaining funds coming from existing investors including 3i, Cipio Partners, Convergent Capital, Crédit Agricole Private Equity, Intel Capital, Partech International, SGAM Alternative Investments, UMC Capital, and WI Harper. This bring the total money invested to about $80 million..its fourth round in 2005 was led by Intel Capital.
The company’s chip are built for DVB-H, which is slowly emerging as the standard, at least in Europe, where the EU is close to mandating the technology as a preferred standard. DiBcom based in Paris, France and established in 2000, launched its DVB-H chip in 2005, and the company says its chips are used in the majority of DVB-H mobile TV phones currently on sale, notably in Italy with LG, Sagem and Samsung.
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Players will come head to head to play Gameloft’s Asphalt 3 Street Rules between July 5th and 8th at the Parc des Expositions, Porte de Versailles in Paris. The competition is part of the Electronic Sports World Cup 2007. It’s Orange Trophy’s second year of existence.
Following pre-event qualifying, 56 players will take part in the tournament. The winner will earn the title of World Champion and trouser 1000 euros.
Asphalt 3 Street Rules has been especially developed by Gameloft for the Trophy. It’s been adapted on nearly 60 handsets and optimised to a tenth of a second, ensuring all participants have an equal chance at making the best score and qualifying.
Gameloft is to run the Orange Trophy international mobile games competition next month.
Players will come head to head to play Gameloft’s Asphalt 3 Street Rules between July 5th and 8th at the Parc des Expositions, Porte de Versailles in Paris. The competition is part of the Electronic Sports World Cup 2007. It’s Orange Trophy’s second year of existence.
Following pre-event qualifying, 56 players will take part in the tournament. The winner will earn the title of World Champion and trouser 1000 euros.
Asphalt 3 Street Rules has been especially developed by Gameloft for the Trophy. It’s been adapted on nearly 60 handsets and optimised to a tenth of a second, ensuring all participants have an equal chance at making the best score and qualifying.
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Verizon Business is extending the benefits of Converged Packet Architecture (CPA) into Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. CPA converges all services, whether IP or traditional data, onto one common network-access interface, allowing customers to more easily and efficiently scale bandwidth or make other adaptations.
“Our Converged Packet Architecture has allowed us to meet the growing demands of our large-business customers in the United States, and we now have the opportunity to bring its benefits to our customers in other parts of the world,” said Fred Briggs, Verizon Business executive vice president of operations and technology. “CPA provides the speed, scalability and operating efficiencies large-business customers need to quickly adapt to changing business requirements.”
In Europe, where numerous multinational companies have operations, Verizon Business will deploy CPA in 19 key cities this year, including large financial and business centers such as London, Frankfurt, Paris, Vienna, Amsterdam, Warsaw, Poland, Dublin, Madrid, Brussels and Zurich. In the Asia-Pacific region, Verizon Business is deploying CPA in five locations this year: Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore, Melbourne and Sydney.
Verizon Business also continues its aggressive CPA deployment in the United States bringing to 46 the number of U.S. cities that will have CPA by the end of 2007. New additions include New Orleans, Orlando, Memphis, Nashville, Milwaukee and Grand Rapids.
CPA supports a full range of legacy and next-generation services including IP, Private IP, Ethernet, private line data, voice traffic, Ethernet Virtual Private Line (EVPL) and Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS). It provides a single packet-access connection via an Ethernet interface at speeds up to GigE. CPA is also the ideal network platform to allow customers to migrate from the older time division multiplexing (TDM) hierarchy to a packet-based technology.
Traditionally, network access requires separate lines for each service¡ªvoice, video, data or Internet¡ªalong with rigid bandwidth boundaries. By contrast, CPA relies on virtual, or logical, connections that converge all applications on a single carrier-class packet access network. As a result, CPA improves operating efficiency and reduces the number of network touch points.
“Simply put, CPA is compatible with all forms of access over any physical connection,” said Briggs. “The customer benefits from robust flow-through automation, broad global coverage, improved network performance and excellent quality of service. It’s a winning combination.”
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Verizon Business is extending the benefits of Converged Packet Architecture (CPA) into Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. CPA converges all services, whether IP or traditional data, onto one common network-access interface, allowing customers to more easily and efficiently scale bandwidth or make other adaptations.
“Our Converged Packet Architecture has allowed us to meet the growing demands of our large-business customers in the United States, and we now have the opportunity to bring its benefits to our customers in other parts of the world,” said Fred Briggs, Verizon Business executive vice president of operations and technology. “CPA provides the speed, scalability and operating efficiencies large-business customers need to quickly adapt to changing business requirements.”
In Europe, where numerous multinational companies have operations, Verizon Business will deploy CPA in 19 key cities this year, including large financial and business centers such as London, Frankfurt, Paris, Vienna, Amsterdam, Warsaw, Poland, Dublin, Madrid, Brussels and Zurich. In the Asia-Pacific region, Verizon Business is deploying CPA in five locations this year: Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore, Melbourne and Sydney.
Verizon Business also continues its aggressive CPA deployment in the United States bringing to 46 the number of U.S. cities that will have CPA by the end of 2007. New additions include New Orleans, Orlando, Memphis, Nashville, Milwaukee and Grand Rapids.
CPA supports a full range of legacy and next-generation services including IP, Private IP, Ethernet, private line data, voice traffic, Ethernet Virtual Private Line (EVPL) and Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS). It provides a single packet-access connection via an Ethernet interface at speeds up to GigE. CPA is also the ideal network platform to allow customers to migrate from the older time division multiplexing (TDM) hierarchy to a packet-based technology.
Traditionally, network access requires separate lines for each service – voice, video, data or Internet – along with rigid bandwidth boundaries. By contrast, CPA relies on virtual, or logical, connections that converge all applications on a single carrier-class packet access network. As a result, CPA improves operating efficiency and reduces the number of network touch points.
“Simply put, CPA is compatible with all forms of access over any physical connection,” said Briggs. “The customer benefits from robust flow-through automation, broad global coverage, improved network performance and excellent quality of service. It’s a winning combination.”
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MetraTech Corp., a leading provider of Web Services-based billing, customer self-care and partner management, has expanded into the Asia-Pacific region with the opening of a new office in Singapore. Located in the prestigious Suntec Tower 3, the new location will enable the company to better serve its growing roster of clients and partners in the Far East.
The company’s MetraNet solution, the first to bring Dynamic Business Modeling to the billing market, enables service providers to rapidly and cost effectively implement new business models. Both leading tier one operators such as Telus, and cutting edge companies such as Blyk, have deployed the solution in recent months. MetraNet is already generating significant interest in the highly competitive Asian region where time-to-market and Return-on–Investment considerations are paramount.
Noted Vladimir Mitrasinovic, senior vice president, global sales and marketing, MetraTech: “the opening of the company’s first office in the Far East represents another significant step in our development. It underlines that MetraNet’s success in the global market is fuelling real, ‘bricks and mortar’ growth. In light of the opportunities and interest we are already experiencing in the region, we expect our presence in Singapore to make an immediate and real contribution to MetraTech’s continuing success.”
Added Scott Swartz, chief executive officer, MetraTech: “The billing market is reaching an inflection point in which hard wired, third-generation billing systems architected around embedded ‘best practice’ approaches are no longer viable. This inflection point is quickly becoming acute in the AsiaPacific region due to service providers’ aggressive plans to deploy sophisticated, innovative and novel services and business models. The ability to dynamically reflect and automate, rather than laboriously translate, these business models has created a growing demand for the MetraNet platform.”
About MetraTech
MetraTech Corp. provides the leading Web Services-based solution for billing, customer self-care, and partner management. MetraNet, MetraTech’s modular flagship platform, empowers customers to invent new business models and enhance collaboration among IT, business groups and subscribers. MetraTech offers a variety of delivery options ranging from licensing to outsourcing. Headquartered in Boston, MetraTech has offices in San Francisco, Frankfurt, Paris and London. MetraTech is a venture-backed, privately held company whose investors include Accel Partners, Vesbridge Partners (formerly St. Paul Venture Capital), Meritech Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners and Lucent Venture Partners.
(Asia Pacific)
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MetraTech Corp., the leading provider of Web Services-based billing, customer self-care and partner management, has announced that for the third consecutive year, the company has been nominated as a finalist for a prestigious World Billing Award. The winners will be announced at IIR’s Billing & Information Management Systems 2007 conference in London next week.
The MetraNet deployment at Telus, a leading national telecommunications company in Canada, is nominated for Best Billing/Charging Implementation. TELUS is among the first customers to fully deploy MetraNet version 5.0, released in 2006. MetraNet’s dynamic business modeling capabilities support complex customer and service relationships that the system user can tailor intuitively to match how business organizations configure themselves. MetraNet’s ability to dynamically adapt to innovative business models gives system users a unique competitive advantage. For Telus, this can provide a significant advantage in the pursuit of large, complex corporate accounts.
The nomination follows MetraTech’s victories in two categories at the World Billing Awards in 2005 and a further win in 2006. The latest nomination caps both a successful year for the company, and underlines its position as the unique player in the billing market.
Hugh Roberts, consultant director of BSS/OSS events at IIR Telecoms and chairman of the Judging Panel previously noted that the award judges believed that MetraTech’s “metadata-driven approach represents a significant development in billing methodology and is highly compatible with the evolving role of billing systems to cover end-to-end financial transaction management.”
Commenting on the 2007 Award nomination, MetraTech chief executive officer Scott Swartz said: “To gain industry recognition – for the third year running – from a panel of our peers and experts underlines MetraTech’s continuing progress. Although we feel the story is just beginning, it’s gratifying that Dynamic Business Modelling is already so clearly recognised as a fundamental shift in the way both business, and billing, problems are addressed.”
Swartz concluded: “Communications companies like Telus have to stand out from the crowd. To do this, they require Business Support Solutions that give them a real differentiator. That’s why MetraNet users, year-in and year-out, are at the top of the Awards lists. They’re getting results.”
About MetraTech
MetraTech Corp. provides the leading Web Services-based solution for billing, customer self-care, and partner management. MetraNet, MetraTech’s modular flagship platform, empowers customers to invent new business models and enhance collaboration among IT, business groups and subscribers. MetraTech offers a variety of delivery options ranging from licensing to outsourcing. Headquartered in Boston, MetraTech has offices in San Francisco, Frankfurt, Paris and London. MetraTech is a venture-backed, privately held company whose investors include Accel Partners, Vesbridge Partners (formerly St. Paul Venture Capital), Meritech Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners and Lucent Venture Partners.
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French mobile network operator SFR is expanding its co-operation with Nokia Siemens Networks in the field of mobile centric services after a successful collaboration on 3G services. They will set up a joint SFR-Nokia Siemens Networks Competence Centre in Paris to develop innovative services and ideas for mobile centric applications. The main objective of their co-operation is to develop a common approach for launching advanced services.
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Alcatel-Lucent wins $400m contract from Reliance
