digiGO! — Digital (R)evolutions

Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) has acquired Velocix, a global provider of Content Delivery Network (CDN) infrastructure and services to Internet and broadband service providers and media and entertainment companies. CDNs optimize digital distribution over the Internet by replicating popular video and rich media content to geographically dispersed networks of delivery servers. This allows user requests for content to be served more rapidly and reliably from these local delivery servers rather than from a single source. The acquisition of Velocix brings Alcatel-Lucent an enabling CDN infrastructure solution for Internet Service Providers and a wealth of experience and expertise that complements its existing technology and business initiatives. Velocix was first to market a turn-key solution —Velocix Metro — that allows Internet and broadband service providers to deploy their own advanced delivery capabilities to support their digital content initiatives.

British Telecom (BT) has registered a significant cut in their profits for the quarter — pre-tax profit has dumped down 45 percent to 272 million pounds for the reporting period for the three months to June 30th. That’s down from the 497 million pounds for the same time period last year. The U.K. telco has sliced 2K jobs from their global IT services division during the quarter, attempting to lower their costs, even though they apparently added 38K net subscribers to their IPTV service called BT Vision during Q2. This brought the total customer base to 433K by the end of June, after adjusting for churn. BT owns a 35 percent share of the DSL and LLU market in the U.K., with a total number of customers during the quarter up to 4.8 million, an increase of some 78K subscribers.

Entropic Communications, Inc. and Sigma Designs are going to develop high definition, MoCA compliant Cable TV and IPTV Set-Top-Box (STB) reference designs, powered by Entropic’s EN2510 and Sigma Designs’ SMP8654. Expected to debut in the Fall of 2009, the reference designs will bring full-featured STB solutions to OEMs and service providers globally. Using Entropic’s third-generation, MoCA 1.1 compliant EN2510 single-chip solution, and Sigma Designs’ SMP8654 Media Processor SoC, the Cable TV and IPTV Set-Top Box reference designs are optimized to enable a cost-effective IP network, capable of delivering outstanding HD video performance, with guaranteed quality of service, over the existing coaxial cabling within the home. By taking advantage of up to 175 Mbps of application layer throughput, 16 node support, parameterized quality of service (PQoS) and remote network diagnostic capability of the MoCA 1.1 standard, the reference designs will provide the bandwidth and media processing required to handle multiple streams of high definition video in addition to other network traffic, such as the sharing of personal content like music, photographs and other digital content.

HaiVision Network Video has announced that Buenos Aires-based Audio Video Sistemas (AVS) is serving as the company’s dealer for customers in Latin American markets. From its headquarters in Argentina and a second office in Miami, AVS provides sales, service, and support for the full HaiVision product line. AVS is dedicated to the design, integration, and installation of professional audio and video solutions with emphasis on IP and satellite networks. Working with several major broadcasters and telcos in South America, AVS has already completed a number of successful installations leveraging HaiVision’s high-performance HD H.264 encoding products for real-time video delivery.

According to Rwandan’s The Business Times, 3G services are about to make some headway and launch in that country from MTN Rwanda. The cellco’s marketing officer said the technology has already been fully tested and the commercial service itself will occur shortly, although an exact rollout date has not yet been announced.

The plans by Pilipino Telphone Company, AKA Piltel (a subsidiary of Smart Communications, Inc.), to initiate a data communications network in the Philippines is no longer viable — the company has decided to negate such plans, which had called for a five-year investment of resources in the development and deployment of a wireless data comm service throughout the nation, at a cost of some PHP7.6 billion.

Net losses of USD384 million have been reported by Sprint Nextel for Q2 of 2009 — that is a gain of 12 percent from the USD344 million in losses a year ago. The U.S. telco also experienced a 10 percent reduction in revenues, year-on-year, from USD9.05 billion down to USD8.14 billion. The Company did cut in half their capital expenditures, spending only USD321 million during the quarter. At the end of June, the Company had 48.83 million subscribers, with some 257k net customers leaving the services in that time frame.

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