NL Short Takes

US cable operator to use Nortel VoIP solutionOne of the 10 largest cable operators in America, Suddenlink Communications, will be using a VoIP solution from Nortel to provide telephone and multimedia services to its customers. The solution includes network design, integration, management and maintenance services, and the new network will provide VoIP services to Suddenlink’s customer base from California to North Carolina. "Nortel’s services and expertise, the proven interoperability of its VoIP solution and its IMS roadmap give us confidence that they can uniquely help our company launch and maintain a new VoIP service," said Terry Cordova, senior VP of engineering at Suddenlink, in a news release. Deployment of the network is expected to begin later this year and be completed by the end of 2007. Canada, California establish high-bandwidth connectionA growing partnership between California and Canadian research leaders has resulted in the completion of a new high-bandwidth connection between Canada’s national research and education network and the California state education network. The partnership is to foster research collaboration between Canada and California, and one specific challenge was to establish the high-bandwidth connection between Canada’s research network, which is run by CANARIE, and CENIC, the California state education network that services all the campuses of the University of California, USC, Stanford, Caltech and those of the California State University. The first demonstration of the interconnection took place last month, and when fully available this "Canadian-California ‘superhighway’ for data will permit individual research projects to have dedicated capacity to support enormous streams of data transfer that would overwhelm a conventional shared network," according to the press release. White Radio, Asoka sign distribution agreementBurlington ON-based White Radio Inc. has signed a distribution agreement with Asoka USA Corp. for Asoka’s portfolio of Powerline network solutions aimed at Internet service providers across Canada. Asoka’s portfolio of Powerline network solutions is designed to extend IP communications over the existing electrical wiring and can handle applications such as high-speed Internet, VoIP and audio and video streaming. "White Radio is highly regarded as one of Canada’s leading suppliers to the cable, telephone, audio/video and utility industries," said Asoka’s director of business development Elsa Chan in a news release. "Asoka is pleased to establish a relationship with White Radio, and it is our hope that this agreement provides White Radio with every opportunity to offer simple, secure and reliable network solutions to its customers." MCI Canada provides spam protection for VaughanMCI Canada’s Managed Scanning Anti-Spam service has decreased more than 800 City of Vaughan ON employees’ inbox message volume, helping to free up bandwidth and system storage while improving system efficiency. The managed service has also enabled the city to off load maintenance of the function to MCI. "It’s proving to be a quick and painless way to eliminate a significant threat to our IT systems," said City of Vaughan CIO Dimitri Yampolsky in a press release. "Beyond the nuisance cost of jammed email boxes and wasted time, we are actively assuring our system reliability both internally and for our citizens." Bell announces another IP-based implementation with RBCIn January 2006, Bell Canada announced that it, along with its partners Cisco Systems Canada and IBM Canada, would implement a fully managed solution for RBC Financial Group, converting approximately 8,400 of the Bank’s phone lines to Voice over Internet Protocol at its head office. On June 27, Bell announced that it will convert RBC’s approximately 1,300 branch offices from a legacy frame relay network to a consolidated IP multi protocol label switching network. Benefits of the new network will be improved reliability, scalability and greater efficiencies, as well as allowing the future capability of converging voice and data traffic to one single network. MyFax upgrades Internet fax serviceOttawa-based MyFax, an Internet-based fax service provided by Protus IP Solutions Inc., has introduced enhancements including a complete integration with Microsoft Office 2003 and IBM Lotus Notes. MyFax also now stores inbound faxes for 31 days on a secure server, more than doubling its previous storage time. The Office 2003 integration allows users to fax directly from Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel or Microsoft PowerPoint using a single button rather than having to open Microsoft Outlook as in the past. The Lotus Notes integration allows users to send electronic faxes while maintaining a log entry for each sent fax. Said Joseph Nour, CEO of Protus IP Solutions in a news release: "These customer partnerships enable us to continue to satisfy existing clients as well as to introduce new users to our valuable cost-effective, scalable services." EXFO honored with Frost & Sullivan AwardsEXFO Electro-Optical Engineering Inc. has been named recipient of the 2006 Product Differentiation Innovation Award by Frost & Sullivan. The annual award is presented to the telecommunications test and measurement company that "best demonstrates the ability to develop products with successful adoption of new technologies that have become a part of its well-designed product family." EXFO received the award based on its new portfolio of product test solutions for next-generation and traditional SONET/SDH networks. EXFO was also named recipient of the Growth Strategy Leadership Award by Frost & Sullivan for the third consecutive year. The award is bestowed on the company whose growth strategy delivers the largest market-share gains in the global fibre-optic test equipment market during the past year. Navigant migrates to Mitel IP systemGlobal travel management solutions provider Navigant International Inc. has migrated to an Internet Protocol solution from Mitel to standardize the communications network across Navigant’s Canadian operations. The move will also enhance Navigant’s call-handling efficiencies, improve employee satisfaction and reduce long-distance and real-estate costs, according to the press release. Navigant’s IT operations manager estimates the switch to Mitel will save the company $200,000 on individual phone lines over the next three years and will reduce maintenance costs by $80,000 a year. Resolver selects MCI’s hosting serviceResolver Inc. has selected MCI Canada’s hosting services to support its browser-based software solutions, which are designed to enable companies to comply with stringent new Canadian regulations on risk management and reporting procedures. MCI provides the hardware, firewall, Web server and database server as well as network management and security functions as part of the hosting solution. "Our customers can feel confident that no matter where in the world they operate, their compliance software will work at optimum speed over one of the largest local-to-global IP networks in the world," said Resolver Canada president Steve Taylor in a news release. Later this year, a law will come into effect in Canada to help protect shareholders and the public by requiring Canadian publicly-traded companies to identify areas of risk within their organizations, monitor these risks electronically and report regularly on their compliance. Demand for M5T product increases 150% in Q1Sherbrooke QC-based M5T, a provider of software solutions for secure, real-time multimedia communications over IP, announced that it has seen an increase of more than 150% in the demand for its products in the first quarter of 2006. The company attributes the increase in demand to the budding acceptance of VoIP as a mainstream secure market tool for businesses, as well as new technologies like fixed mobile convergence. Said Samuel Guénette, GM of M5T, in a news release: "Innovation is not merely the result of some technical breakthroughs. Innovation also critically depends on the skills of those people involved in the process….We pride ourselves in not only offering the customer a solution that is second-to-none, but we also offer the expertise of outstanding engineers and support personnel that work with the customer to make sure that the solution will meet their every need."

NL Short Takes

News | July 6, 2006

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