Level 3 (NYSE: LVLT) will once again provide live, high definition television broadcast services, including Vyvx VenueNet+ technology, to NBC for Super Bowl XLVI on Feb. 5.

Since the Lucas Oil Stadium, the location of the Super Bowl, is already connected to Level 3’s fiber network, NBC can acquire and broadcast the game without having to build or manage its own on network on the site.

During the game, the service provider said that over 3,000 hours of video content will be acquired, encoded and transported across Level 3’s Vyvx VenueNet+ platform

Additionally, Level 3 will carry the pre-game and post-game feeds to NFL operations centers in Mt. Laurel, N.J., Culver City, Calif. and NFL Network master control facilities in Atlanta, as well as other broadcast networks and satellite teleport sites for global distribution.

For more:
- see the release

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Source:Fierce Telecom

Frontier Communications (NYSE: FTR) is once again finding itself having to convince current FiOS TV customers that the service is here to stay. In a move to perhaps encourage Frontier’s FiOS TV customers from defecting to cable, the ILEC has unveiled a series of new pricing plans. Under its new custom value pricing structure, customers will get a percentage taken off their bill if they subscribe to other services via FiOS TV.

“This is just our revised pricing plan and so, it’s just simplified pricing and customer-friendly building,” Frontier spokesman Matt Kelley told WANE-TV.

FiOS has been a bit of a thorn in Frontier’s side. Serving existing FiOS TV and FiOS data customers in Oregon, Washington and Indiana was one of the conditions of purchasing Verizon’s (NYSE: VZ) rural lines.

Claiming it lacks the clout to deal with the area’s content owners, Frontier said it was forced to raise its FiOS TV rates 46 percent, from $65 to $95 a month. The FiOS TV rate increases in these states were significantly higher than Comcast’s (Nasdaq: CMCSA) proposed 5 percent video rate increase.

For those customers who don’t want to pay the new rates, Frontier began offering DirecTV (Nasdaq: DTV) satellite service for free throughout 2011 and then $63 a month after the period ends.

Comcast, not surprisingly, wasted no time in launching a campaign to entice customers angered by the rate hikes.

However, Kelley dismissed the ads as nothing more than scare tactics.

“There is no truth to the rumors that were put out in the market through advertising through a competitor,” he said. “That was just an opportunity for them to try to scare people to drop the service.”

For more:
- WANE.com has this article

Related articles:
Frontier puts FiOS TV rate hike on hold
Frontier ups FiOS installation costs to $500, opts out of Oregon video franchises
Comcast tries to lure Frontier’s Indiana FiOS TV customers
Frontier to jack up FiOS video prices in Indiana, Oregon, Washington
Does Frontier’s rate hike signal that it wants out of the TV space?

Source:Fierce Telecom

Trading in Acme Packet (Nasdaq: APKT) on the Nasdaq was temporarily halted this afternoon as the network equipment vendor reported that its fourth quarter earnings missed estimates. Investors promptly dumped the company’s stock, dropping it 10 percent, within a few minutes of after-market trading.

Acme Packet shares closed at $30.89 Thursday. By 5:15 p.m., after the firm announced its estimates, its stock dropped to $27.30 in after-market trading.

Analysts had estimated the Acme Packet would bring in $85.2 million in Q4 and earn 28 cents a share. But the vendor earned just 26 cents per share and brought in $83 million–still an 18 percent year-over-year rise but not what was expected.

In January, Acme Packet released preliminary guidance that revised its estimates downward to between $84-86 million with EPS of 26 to 28 cents.

The equipment vendor competes with Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO), Huawei and Sonus (Nasdaq: SONS) in the network equipment segment.

For more:
– Barron’s has this report
– see the earnings release

Related articles:
Acme Packet stock takes a hit as it lowers guidance for year
Acme Packet lowers its Q4 2011 financial forecast

Source:Fierce Telecom

It’s a rare occasion for any startup company to come out of stealth mode with a major customer in hand. However, EyeIO (I-I-O, as in eye, input, output), a developer of H.264 encoding technology that it says delivers HD-quality video at ultra-low bandwidth, did just that by landing Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) as its first customer. Over at FierceTelecom’s sister publication FierceOnlineVideo, Editor Jim O’Neill in his latest editorial talks about the new company and how it could help online video providers deliver a better video experience with less bandwidth. Article

Source:Fierce Telecom

Tata Communications (NYSE: TCL) has joined with nine other global service providers to create what it calls the Global Meeting Alliance, an open ecosystem of service providers that have aligned to interconnect their respective business video networks.

Joining Tata are a number of global service providers operating in five countries, including Sprint (NYSE: S), Glowpoint (OTC BB: GLOW.OB) and TELUS (Toronto: T.TO) in North America, Safaricom in Africa, Telstra (ASX: TLS.AX) in Australia, Etisalat, Qtel and Mobily in the Middle East, and Neotel in South Africa.

While videoconferencing and telepresence are services that have been gaining increased momentum as executives look for ways to curb travel costs to see clients and other company members, the challenge is each location will be using separate service providers.

Through the advent of the Global Meeting Alliance network, any service provider can connect their business customers on all major continents regardless of the service provider.

Having already established a large number of intercarrier agreements with service providers like Sprint and Verizon, any Global Meeting Alliance member customer will have access an international Telepresence network of third party video endpoints, as well as the largest global public Telepresence room network consisting of 40 public Telepresence suites in 20 countries.

Members of the community will also look for ways to solve any common telepresence industry challenges they may face in helping customers connect to “affordable” videoconferencing services on a global basis.

This new alliance builds on the one-off arrangements made by Tata and Sprint have done over the past year to enable each of their own respective video exchange customers conduct telepresence meetings using each other’s network.

For more:
- see the release

Related articles:
BT, Orange establish telepresence connectivity agreement
Sprint, Tata partner for telepresence
Sprint to extend Tata videoconferencing services to enterprise customers
Verizon, Tata Communications strike telepresence reciprocity deal

Source:Fierce Telecom

Phonoscope, a Houston-based service provider, said it will prepare its network to handle the 10G to 40G to 100G speeds its metro Ethernet and wireless backhaul carriers will require.

To achieve its goals, the service provider will build an optical network that connects 25 fault tolerant, multi-gigabit Ethernet rings leveraging Ciena’s (Nasdaq: CIEN) 6500 Packet-Optical platform.

By taking advantage of Ciena’s WaveLogic coherent technology, Phonoscope said it will be able to scale to 40G/100G as needed.

In addition, Phonoscope will also deploy Ciena’s 5410 and 5150 Service Aggregation Switches, and 3930 and 3931 Service Delivery Switches to deliver packet-based services to end-customers.

This network upgrade is not just a science experiment, however. While not revealing a name, Phonoscope said one of the nation’s largest wireless operators is going to purchase 10 Gbps circuits to backhaul aggregated 4G LTE mobile backhaul traffic from its cell sites.

For more:
- see the release

Special report: In detail: Tracking the 100G path

Related articles:
BT paves new 40G, 100G optical networking path
Allstream lights up 100G network with Ciena
Internet2, ESnet light up transcontinental 100G network
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Source:Fierce Telecom

AT&T (NYSE: T) is reshuffling its top management deck, naming John Stankey as its new strategy chief and making other changes it believes will better position itself for new growth opportunities.

Stankey

In addition to leading the AT&T’s business solutions division, Stankey is well known for helping drive AT&T’s wireless network build out.

“Stankey, who has led nearly every major AT&T business unit during his 27-year career, will be responsible for developing the roadmap to maximize future growth opportunities,” AT&T said in a release announcing the changes Monday.

The service provider also made changes to its wireline division and technology leadership.

To capitalize on wireline consumer and business service growth, AT&T has appointed Andy Geisse as its new senior executive vice president, AT&T Business and Home Solutions. In this new role, the 32-year company veteran will oversee both the business segment and Home Solutions team focused on its U-verse video, broadband, and voice operations.  

With Geisse taking over the consumer helm, Ralph de la Vega will become president and CEO of AT&T Mobility. Current CTO John Donovan will take on the role of senior executive vice president, AT&T Technology and Network Operations.

Each of these executives will continue to report directly to current AT&T CEO and Chairman Randall Stephenson.

On the way out is Forrest Miller, who oversaw AT&T’s M&A and corporate strategy. Miller is retiring after 30 years with the telco.

For more:
- see the release
- Reuters has this article

Special report: Wireline in the fourth quarter 2011

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AT&T launches cloud-based unified communications service

Source:Fierce Telecom

The Mexican government wants to drive more broadband adoption country, and it believes it can achieve those goals by auctioning leases on state-owned fiber lines service providers can use to build networks in unserved areas.

As reported in Bloomberg, winning bidders will be able to leverage two fiber lines from state-owned utility Comision Federal de Electricidad (CFE). In addition, service providers can also bid on leases for fiber lines that run along the federal highway network.

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Mexico’s broadband adoption rate is low. As of the end of 2010, the group said that the country had only 10.5 high-speed broadband subscriptions per 100 residents, placing it 32nd out of the 34 countries profiled in its report.

“We’re promoting social connectivity with broadband,” said Felipe Calderon, Mexico’s president. “The plan includes contracts to connect schools and public spaces with high-speed Internet.”

This is not the only time that the government has auctioned off state-owned fiber to drive competition in the market that’s been dominated by incumbent provider Telmex.

In 2010, a consortium led by Grupo Televisa SAB with partners Megacable (Mexico: MEGACPO.MX) and Telefonica SA (NYSE: TEF), won a 20-year $69.3 million lease for a fiber optic network from the CFE.

For more:
- Bloomberg has this article

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Source:Fierce Telecom

Tellabs (Nasdaq: TLAB) continued to face revenue challenges in Q4 2011 as revenue declined on a year-over-year basis to $317 million from $410 million in Q4 2010.

Likewise, Tellabs’ 2011 revenue declined year-over-year to $1.29 billion from $1.64 billion in 2010.

As a result, Tellabs CEO and President Rob Pullen said the company will lay off about 530 employees and refocus its efforts on wireless backhaul and packet optical networking segments. Additionally, it will stop development work on its SmartCore 9100 LTE product, while continuing to support its SmartCore 9100 WiMAX customers.

“We’ll address customers’ needs through our next-generation portfolio of products and services for the smart mobile Internet, including Tellabs Mobile Backhaul Solution, Tellabs Packet Optical Solution and professional services such as Tellabs Insight Analytics Services,” Pullen said in a statement.

Earlier in Q2 2011, the vendor announced it would lay off 330 employees, or 10 percent of its workforce after reporting a 21 percent decline in year-over-year revenue from $423 million to $334 million.

Here’s a breakdown of the company’s key metrics:

• Broadband/Data: Tellabs’ Q4 2011 broadband segment revenue was $166 million. Ongoing revenue gains in managed access products was offset by lower data and access product revenue, while managed access revenue was $46.7 million, up from $37.5 million in Q4 2010.
• Transport: Overall Q4 2011 transport segment revenue was $92 million. The ongoing declines in digital cross connect system revenue drove the segment profit down to $19.0 million.
• Services: During the quarter, services segment revenues declined slightly from $60.2 to $59 million, a factor it attributes to lower deployment revenue, which was partially offset by higher professional services revenue. Meanwhile, the services segment profit rose to $20.9 million, up from $18.5 million in Q4 2010.

Looking forward, Tellabs forecast Q1 2012 revenue to fall between $260 million to $290 million, missing analyst estimates of $297.7 million.

For more:
- see the release (pdf)
- Reuters has this article

Special report: Wireline in the fourth quarter 2011

Related articles:
Tellabs Q3 revenue down, Q4 outlook flat to slightly up
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Source:Fierce Telecom

Zayo’s aggressive deployment continues to resonate with the wireless service provider community looking for alternative backhaul solutions; the wholesaler’s fiber to the tower (FTT) network now reaches 2,000 cell towers.

Offering over 100G in overall bandwidth to 3,000 wireless operator tenants, the service provider now has 46 markets in operation with six more currently being built out.

Since being founded in 2007, Zayo has deployed over 4,000 metro route miles to support its FTT network. The timing of its buildout coincides nicely with both large incumbent carriers that have wireless arms (AT&T (NYSE: T) and Verizon (NYSE: VZ)) that need to seek out other providers in markets where they don’t have wireline facilities. Verizon, for example, named a number of alternative providers outside of its traditional ILEC wireline markets for wireless backhaul in support of its LTE roll out in 2010.

However, alternative providers like Zayo also have great relevance to standalone wireless operators (MetroPCS (NYSE: PCS), Sprint (NYSE: S) and T-Mobile, a Zayo customer), which are also aggressively building out their respective 4G LTE networks that will require fiber and Ethernet-based wireless backhaul solutions to support growing wireless traffic loads.

Indeed, getting the endorsement of T-Mobile will help Zayo make its case to other wireless operators in its FTT footprint.

Sticking to its aggressive buildout strategy, David Howson, president of Zayo Bandwidth, said the company is building more than 500 additional towers, which will be brought on-net in the near future.

For more:
- see this post

Special report: The most important M&As of 2011

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Source:Fierce Telecom