update

Lucent Technologies (Murray Hill, NJ) agreed to acquire Riverstone Networks (Santa Clara, CA), a maker of carrier-grade Ethernet routers, for $170 million in cash, subject to completion of a bankruptcy court administered process under Riverstone’s impending reorganization proceeding. Separately, Lucent announced a four-year managed services agreement worth more than $10 million to operate and manage the U.S.-based network facilities of Pacific Crossing Ltd. (PCL-Dallas, TX). PCL owns and operates the PC-1 fiber-optic cable system that connects the U.S. and Japan.

Qwest Communications (Denver, CO) agreed to provide both local and nationwide connectivity to six National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA-Washington, DC) centers as well as to other NASA locations. The network will enable 2.5-Gbit/sec and 10-Gbit/sec wavelength services using the carrier’s QWave optical communication services.

North Dakota Telephone Co. (Devils Lake, ND) selected APA Cables & Networks’ (Minneapolis, MN) fiber management and distribution products for an FTTP deployment in the city of Devils Lake.

CLEC Parker FiberNet (Summerville, GA) deployed Terawave Communications’ (Hayward, CA) PON platform to provide voice, data, and private line services to business customers in and around Athens, GA. The CLEC operates a 75-mi SONET fiber ring around the city; the PON platform replaces a previous fiber modem system. Also, cable service provider and CLEC Sigecom (Evansville, IN) deployed Terawave’s BPON systems to provide Ethernet and DS-1 services to small and medium-sized businesses throughout its region.

Teléfonos de México S.A. de C.V. (Mexico City) selected Ciena’s (Linthicum, MD) CoreStream Agility optical transmission system for deployment in the provider’s long-distance network. Also, for a network expansion, Progress Telecom (St. Petersburg, FL) selected Ciena’s CN 4200 FlexSelect advanced services platform for 10-Gbit DWDM metro and regional transport, and the company’s CN 3600 intelligent optical multiservice switch for international gateway and SONET/SDH applications.

Level 3 Communications (Broomfield, CO) agreed to acquire all of the membership interests of Progress Telecom (St. Petersburg, FL), a regional wholesale network services company. Under terms of an agreement, Level 3 expects to pay total consideration of $137 million, consisting of $68.5 million in unregistered shares of Level 3 common stock and $68.5 million in cash.

Link America (Rowlett, TX) selected White Rock Networks’ (Richardson, TX ) VLX2006 multiservice access platform for delivering OC-48 transport and Ethernet-based services, as well as to enable TDM backhaul of the provider’s existing systems.

For its FTTX network deployment, Pineland Telephone Cooperative (Pineland, GA) deployed ADC’s (Minneapolis, MN) OmniReach Fiber Distribution Hub system of fiber-optic enclosures. Also, the City of Burlington, VT, installed ADC’s Next Generation Fiber Frames platform for the city’s point-to-point fiber-optic network, which is operated by city-owned utility Burlington Telecom.

TranSwitch (Shelton, CT) acquired Mysticom (Netanya, Israel), a developer of 10-Gigabit Ethernet transceivers, through the issuance of approximately $15 million in the form of TranSwitch common stock and cash. Mysticom will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of TranSwitch.

CLEC Cavalier Telephone (Richmond, VA) completed its acquisition of Elantic Telecom (Richmond, VA). Elantic Telecom, formerly known as Dominion Telecom, operates an 8,200-route-mi fiber-optic network connecting major cities in the eastern United States.

Movaz Networks (Atlanta, GA) closed $20 million in equity financing and secured an additional line of credit for $12 million. Investors included Anschutz Investment, Comcast Interactive Capital, Menlo Ventures, Oak Investment Partners, Meritech Capital Partners, and Worldview Technology Partners. The company says the financing will support expanding operations surrounding the in-service deployment of its multidegree RAY-ROADM platform.

Yipes Enterprise Services (San Francisco, CA) was granted a second U.S. patent (#6,963,575) for its IP-over-fiber technology, designed to extend Ethernet LAN connectivity into metro environments. The company says the patent is the foundation for its ability to deliver scalable Ethernet services to enterprise customers across its gigabit network.

Metconnex (Ottawa, ON, Canada), a provider of optical wavelength-selective-switch modules, announced the closing of $7 million in financing. Investors included Skypoint Capital, Vesbridge Partners, Innovacom, and BDC Venture Capital.

Twin Valley Telephone (Miltonvale, KS) will deploy an FTTH network using Allied Telesyn’s (San Jose, CA) iMAP 9700 integrated multiservice access platform and Layer 3 Ethernet/IP switch platforms. The ILEC’s 100-Mbit FTTH delivery network will ultimately support both active Ethernet and passive GEPON protocols to bring triple-play services to more than 6,400 subscribers. The deployment will expand the ILEC’s network from 850 sq mi to more than 2,400 sq mi of service area.

Time Warner Telecom (Littleton, CO) implemented a 130-mi extension of its fiber network to the greater Atlanta cities of Alpharetta, Smyrna, Norcross, Perimeter, and Roswell. The provider operates and maintains a fiber network infrastructure and a 10-Gbit/sec IP backbone delivering metro Ethernet, next-generation services, and integrated voice and data platforms to medium and large Atlanta-area businesses.

Kailight Photonics (Dallas, TX) closed its first Series B funding with an investment of $4.5 million. The funding was led by new investor Hyperion Venture Partners and an unnamed strategic investor; the round also included current investors Lucent Venture Partners, the Yozma Group, Ofer Hi-Tech, Peregrine Ventures, and Plentyum. The investment brings the company’s total venture funding to $14.5 million, not including strategic grants from the BIRD, BRITECH, and IST projects. Kailight says the funding will be used to support the manufacturing and sales of its Tunable All-optical Signal Regenerator (TASR) product line.

Agilent Technologies’ (Palo Alto, CA) N2X multiservices test platform was chosen by Fiberxon (Santa Clara, CA) to validate Ethernet PON (EPON) system performance while delivering triple-play services. Fiberxon says that Agilent’s N2X N5604A tri-rate EPON test card and dedicated software allowed it to more rapidly set up and evaluate its EPON system performance.

MRV Communications (Chatsworth, CA) announced that it will resell EdenTree Technologies’ (Newbury Park, CA) EdenTree Lab Manager software in an integrated platform with the MRV Media Cross Connect (MCC) system. The joint platform is aimed at automating test labs for network equipment manufacturers, service providers, and enterprises. The reseller agreement is an extension of a year-long collaboration between the companies that included technical hardware/software integration and jointly selling the platform to test labs at the U.S. Army in Ft. Huachuca, AZ, Cisco Systems (San Jose, CA), and SBC Communications (San Antonio, TX).

ColorChip (Caesarea, Israel), a manufacturer of glass-based planar lightwave circuit (PLC) chips and modules for FTTH networks, closed a $9.5 million financing round led by Bessemer Venture Partners and joined by Motorola Ventures and European Venture Partners. Also participating in the round were existing investors Eurofund, Polytechnos, and Walden. The company says the proceeds will enable it to move from development to mass production, while expanding its marketing and sales and R&D efforts.

Omron (Kyoto, Japan) acquired Aduro (Pleasanton, CA), a manufacturer of precision high-speed optical subassemblies. Omron’s Electronic Components Business unit (ECB) assumed Aduro’s assets and employees on December 30, 2005; a subsidiary named Omron Network Products LLC was subsequently established.

Cable operator Service Electric (Birdsboro, PA) deployed OpVista’s (Milpitas, CA) reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexer (ROADM) and DWDM technology, as well as its Switch Ring Architecture (SRA) platform, to provide network services to approximately 300,000 subscribers. The deployed network optically connects systems across Pennsylvania and New Jersey on two interconnected rings, supporting bidirectional transport of Gigabit Ethernet traffic for video-on-demand, digital simulcast, VoIP, and commercial IP data services, as well as unidirectional broadcast video traffic.

TelCove (Parsippany, NJ) announced that it has invested $2 million dollars in the past year to build out its regional Syracuse and Rome/Utica, NY, fiber-optic footprint, upgrading its local and intercity network to enable services such as enterprise VoIP, business continuity/disaster recovery services, and 10-Gbit metro Ethernet service. In its central New York region, TelCove now has 33 fiber-optic loops incorporating 500 route mi of embedded fiber-optic cable; the provider says this network architecture supports approximately 650 and 230 medium-to-large enterprises in Syracuse and the Rome/Utica region, respectively.

BTI Photonic Systems (Ottawa, ON, Canada), a supplier of optical networking platforms for the build-out of metro broadband services, closed on $12.25 million of Series C financing. The round was led by BDC Venture Capital, with GrowthWorks Canadian Fund as a new investor and follow-on participation from existing investors Vengrowth Capital, Lucent Venture Partners, Kodiak Venture Partners, and BCE Capital. BTI says it will use the financing to enhance its operational growth, expand its market coverage, and deliver product enhancements.

Molex’s (Lisle, IL) Reliability Engineering Laboratory was certified as an Independent Testing Laboratory to test and qualify products for Verizon’s (New York City) FTTP networks. Certification gives Molex the ability to qualify products in its own labs for the carrier’s Fiber Optic Component (FOC) program, under third-party oversight from Intertek ETL Semko (Stockholm, Sweden). Testing is performed in accordance with Telcordia’s (Piscataway, NJ) GR-326-CORE specification, which includes product requirements for all connectors and adapters for single- and multifiber singlemode applications.

Alaska Communications Systems Group (ACS-Anchorage, AK) executed definitive agreements to assume ownership of the strategic fiber-optic cable network assets of Crest Communications, the successor to Neptune Communications. The deal follows an option exercised by ACS in April 2005 to assume ownership of the assets, which consist of fiber-optic transport facilities in Alaska between Whittier and Anchorage, and between Anchorage and Fairbanks.

Broadcom (Irvine, CA) signed a definitive agreement to acquire Sandburst (Andover, MA), a fabless semiconductor company specializing in the development of packet switching and routing systems-on-a-chip (SoCs) for deployment in enterprise core and metro Ethernet networks, for approximately $80 million.

Advanced Thermal Solutions (Norwood, MA), a provider of testing and design services and products to cool electronic equipment, formed a partnership with National Technical Systems (Calabasas, CA), a provider of conformance and certification testing, quality registration, and managed services. The companies say the partnership offers an integrated resource for manufacturers with thermal management issues who require the services of a certified testing laboratory to show compliance with equipment standards.

Local exchange carrier Cal-Ore Telephone (Dorris, CA) deployed Optical Solutions’ (Minneapolis, MN) FiberPath 500 FTTP GPON system to deliver voice, video, and data services to a new residential development in Klamath Falls, OR.

StockerYale (Salem, NH) has realigned its operations into core businesses targeting the production of specialty optical fiber, lasers, and LEDs. The company says its sales in 4Q05, including its mature product lines, were in the range of $5 million, representing a 14% to 19% increase over 4Q04. The growth in revenues was led by a 170% increase in specialty optical fiber revenues and a 21% increase in laser sales.

The U.K. Department of Trade and Industry awarded £1.7 million ($3 million) funding to a collaborative project, known as Extended Temperature Optoelectronics (ETOE), to develop advanced InP-based photonic materials and devices. Organizations involved in the project include the Centre for Integrated Photonics (Suffolk, UK), Bookham (San Jose, CA), Epichem (Bromborough, UK), Loughborough Surface Analysis (Loughborough, UK), the University of Sheffield, and the University of Surrey.

Epsilon Telecommunications (London) deployed Turin Networks’ (Petaluma, CA) Traverse multiservice transport switch in its London metro optical ring network to expand network capacity from 2.5 to 10 Gbits/sec.

Telewest Global (London) will deploy Corning Cable Systems’ (Corning, NY) NexCor singlemode fiber in the latest upgrade of the carrier’s hybrid fiber/coax networks. Telewest says it will use the fiber to deliver more capacity for its broadband Internet and content-on-demand services. The fiber expansion will support upgrades in the company’s Preston and Liverpool networks.

Portaal, the Dutch social housing association, chose PacketFront’s (Stockholm, Sweden) broadband aggregation platforms for delivery of triple-play FTTH services to more than 55,000 homes in the Netherlands.

France Telecom (Paris) announced that in Spring 2006 it will test an FTTH offering in six districts in Paris and six cities in the Hauts-de-Seine region, covering thousands of households. The operator says the large-scale experiment will validate the conditions for FTTH service deployment, technical and commercial operations, and related services. Services to be offered in the pilot program will include HDTV, IP telephony, and high-speed Internet access.

The Telephone Service of the Vatican State (Rome), which is responsible for the installation and management of the telecommunications infrastructure in Vatican City, deployed a series of Ethernet access platforms from RAD Data Communications (Tel Aviv, Israel). RAD’s ETX-102 and ETX-202 Ethernet media converters, as well as its Egate-20 channelized Ethernet gateway and RICi-E1 intelligent converter, were implemented to transport resilient Ethernet services over the Holy See’s fiber-optic telecommunications network.

OE Solutions (Gwangju, Korea), a supplier of optoelectronic transceivers, closed an $8 million Series B round of financing, led by strategic investor Sungshin Cement Co. Ltd. The investment brings OE Solutions’ total funding to $12 million. The company says it will use the funding to expand volume manufacturing to meet demand for its PON and SFP product families.

NEC Electronics (Tokyo) announced that it will merge its wholly owned subsidiary, NEC Compound Semiconductor Devices Ltd., which develops RF and wireless semiconductors, components for fiber-optic communications, optocouplers, and solid-state relays, back into the parent company, effective April 1. In the U.S. and western hemisphere, California Eastern Laboratories (Santa Clara, CA) will become NEC’s exclusive sales and marketing partner for the products manufactured by NEC Compound Semiconductor Devices.

Broad Net Mux Corp. (BNMUX-Tokyo) integrated Entropic Communications’ (San Diego, CA) c.LINK network access chipset into high-speed cable modems designed for FTTH service delivery to multiple dwelling units (MDUs). MSO Jupiter Telecommunications (Tokyo) has deployed the BNMUX modems in its 100-Mbit/sec high-speed data service.

Sirius Broadband (Dhaka, Bangladesh) selected Salira’s (Santa Clara, CA) 3000 Series of EPON products for the first GEPON network in Bangladesh. The provider has been using the company’s equipment to deliver commercial-grade bandwidth to downstream carriers for more than two years in the city of Dhaka. The Salira 3000 Series incorporates Teknovus (Petaluma, CA) chipsets and consists of optical line terminal/optical network unit devices as well as the Salira Access Management system.

UTStarcom (Alameda, CA) is supplying its NetRing 600 and 2500 optical transport platforms to RailTel of India Corp. (New Delhi), a subsidiary of Indian Railways that oversees a nationwide Indian railway network of more than 10,000 km. Also, UTStarcom agreed to supply its NetRing 10000 multiservice optical transport products to Taiwan’s Chung­hwa Telecom (Taipei) for an expansion of the provider’s network in support of its MultiMedia on Demand service.

Asia Netcom (Hong Kong), a subsidiary of China Netcom (Beijing), selected Lucent Technologies’ (Murray Hill, NJ) LambdaUnite Multi-Service Switch to upgrade the pan-Asian EAC submarine cable network by replacing the network’s existing optical platform.

Optical manufacturers including Avanex, CyOptics, Eudyna Devices, Mitsubishi Electric, Oki Electric Industry, Opnext, and Sumitomo Electric Industries announced the release of new common specifications for optical devices with SC connectors as interfaces compliant with the 10-Gbit/sec Miniature Device Multisource Agreement (XMD-MSA) standard. The new specifications detail applications pertaining to transmitter optical subassembly (TOSA) and receiver optical subassembly (ROSA) devices embedded into 10-Gbit/sec XFP modules. The specifications comply with interface standards including 10-Gigabit Ethernet, 10-Gbit Fibre Channel, and SONET OC-192, and support the use of optical devices from multiple suppliers.

NEC (Tokyo) signed a contract with purchasers, comprised of 17 leading global operators, for the upgrade of the Maya-1 submarine cable system. The “Maya-1 Upgrade #2” project calls for expanding the capacity of the submarine network, located in the Caribbean region, from the current 5×2.5-Gbit/sec system to a potential 8×10-Gbit/sec system.

Shanghai Telecom (Shanghai), a subsidiary of China Telecom (Beijing), deployed Cisco Systems’ (San Jose, CA) CRS-1 multichassis carrier routing system to enable a “super point-of-presence” for the carrier’s current high-speed core IP network, and to expand gateway capacity to meet future bandwidth demands.

Tyco Electronics (Harrisburg, PA) will become a $12 billion standalone enterprise as the result of a restructuring plan approved by the board of directors of Tyco International Ltd. (Pembroke, Bermuda). The plan separates the company into three publicly traded entities: Tyco Electronics, Tyco Healthcare, and Tyco Fire & Security and Engineered Products & Services (TFS/TEPS). The company intends to accomplish the separation through tax-free stock dividends to Tyco shareholders, after which they will own 100% of the equity in the three companies. Each company will have its own independent board of directors and corporate governance standards. Tyco expects to complete the transactions during the first quarter of calendar 2007. Tom Lynch, former president of Tyco’s Engineered Products & Services segment, has been appointed CEO of Tyco Electronics.

Ibsen Photonics (Copenhagen, Denmark), a supplier of holographic phase masks, transmission diffraction gratings, and optical spectrometer modules based on diffraction gratings, was granted U.S. Patent #6,978,062, titled “Wavelength Division Multiplexed Device.” The company says the technology in the patent is based on using multiple transmission gratings to provide high dispersion, while simultaneously taking advantage of the beam-folding properties of transmission gratings, in order to create compact module designs.