Faulkner Com Flash 10/18/00 - (Part 2 of 2) (fwd)
Missy Harvey
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Date: Wednesday, October 25, 2000, 12:04 PM -0400
From: Faulkner Information Services <mails...@faulknerinfo.com>
To: ???
Subject: Faulkner Com Flash 10/18/00 - (Part 2 of 2)
Broadband/Cable Networking
AT&T Broadband and DIVA launched video-on-demand (VOD) services to
customers in Atlanta, where the service is currently being tested, as well
as San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Pittsburgh. After successful testing in
Atlanta, AT&T intends to use DIVA's headend equipment, software, and
content in the new markets. The VOD service will allow cable customers to
order video titles through their set-top boxes and to pause, rewind, or
fast forward by using a remote control.
DSL.net expanded its base to offer high-speed Internet access in 52 new
areas, including Los Angeles, CA, Kansas City, MO, Buffalo, NY,
Albuquerque, NM, and Carmel, CA. DSL.net offers SDSL service, Web hosting,
and e-mail capabilities to small- to mid-sized businesses in these new
areas, allowing them to take advantage of services once available to only
large corporations.
Singapore Telecom began trials of TollBridge Technologies' Voice-over-DSL
(VoDSL) service, the V5.2 Voice Gateway. SingTel will be one of the first
ISPs to use this carrier-class technology in Asia. In other news, SingTel
will deploy Redback Networks' Subscriber Management System to meet the
demand for broadband access.
Sprint launched Broadband Direct, its wireless high-speed Internet service,
in Houston. The service provides two-way, high-speed access to the Internet
using fixed-wireless technology. Download speeds are about 1M bps. and
average upstream speeds are 256K bps. The technology uses a small
diamond-shaped transceiver that is pointed toward a radio transmission
tower no more than 35 miles away. Internet services are provided by
EarthLink Sprint. Residential service costs $44.95 per month, and standard
business pricing is $119.95 per month.
Sprint is expanding its consumer broadband offerings to allow customers to
integrate multiple services over a single connection to the home. The
company is offering three new families of products. ION xt4 offers
high-speed Internet access with downstream speeds up to 8M bps and upstream
speeds up to 1M bps, four voice/fax lines, unlimited local calling, and 750
minutes of domestic long distance for $149.99 per month. ION xt2 offers the
same features, except drops long distance calling to 400 minutes a month
for $119.99 per month. ION Direct offers dedicated Internet access with up
to 1.5M bps downstream speeds for $44.99 per month. The ION services are
currently available in Austin, Dallas, Denver, Fort Worth, Houston, Kansas
City, Los Angeles, Orange County, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego, and
Seattle. Sprint also offers broadband wireless service in Colorado Springs,
Detroit, Houston, Phoenix, and Tucson.
Telstra and Pacific Century CyberWorks will invest up to four billion
dollars to build a global cable network. The network, initially spanning
Asia, North America and Europe, will be the first major project undertaken
by the two companies IP backbone joint venture. The network will have a
capacity of more than 2.5 terabytes per second and will be operational by
2002.
VersaPoint, a pan-European broadband provider, launched earlier this year
through a partnership between Northpoint Communications and VersaTel,
announced it secured central office space from British Telecom and signed a
contract to use BT's unbundled local loops to offer DSL service in the UK.
In other news, Versapoint has been awarded a license to test DSL service in
Paris using France Telecom's unbundled loops.
Satellite Services
DIRECTV, Wink, and THOMSON Multimedia launched DIRECTV INTERACTIVE, an
interactive deployment, available to over one million customers owning a
Wink-capable DIRECTV receiver. By the end of 2001, DIRECTV expects to have
over five million homes connected to the service, allowing customers to
interact with the programs and commercials onscreen.
Network/Systems Management
BMC Software formed a distributed data base management strategic business
unit, designed to provide customers with products, support, and services.
This new unit's products will include BMC's DataOne family, which covers
such data base products as: SQL Development Tools, Change Management,
Performance Monitoring, and Backup &Recovery, to be supported by Oracle,
Microsoft, and Sybase platforms.
Additionally, BMC Software unveiled the Workload License Pricing, which
utilizes IBM's z/OS and IBM eServer zSeries. The Workload License Pricing
extends BMC Software's pricing models, reducing the overall cost of growth.
This addition will enable an expansion of BMC's capacity used on the IBM
eServer zSeries, will leave room for spare hardware capacity, and will run
on the Linux platform.
In other news, BMC Software released PATROL Integration for SiteAngel, a
Knowledge Module (KM) linking PATROL with SiteAngel, designed to improve
Web monitoring and e-business management. Through this integration,
businesses can manage and monitor their Web site themselves, giving them a
centralized view of Web site data, and the ability to implement corrective
action via the PATROL interface.
BMC Software also reported that it will support Microsoft Exchange
2000-based systems via its PATROL for Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server. The
PATROL for Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server product line features Perform,
Predict, and Diagnose modules, as well as PATROL's historical, real-time,
and predictive performance capabilities.
Finally, BMC Software unveiled the Pool Advisor for DB2, a service that
collects and analyzes real-time pool usage data. Pool Advisor for DB2 will
be bundled with BMC's OPERTUNE for DB2, MAINVIEW for DB2, and AutoOPERATOR
for MVS. Pool Advisor's overall purpose is to automate performance tuning
and to improve overall DB2 performance.
Computer Associates launched a new version of the Unicenter TNG Microsoft
Exchange Option of the Microsoft Exchange platform for e-mail, scheduling,
custom collaboration, and messaging-service applications. The Unicenter TNG
Microsoft Exchange Option 2.0 enables organizations to increase service and
reliability of the Exchange environment via extended performance monitoring
and centralized reporting.
Tivoli Systems reported that its integrated e-business management services
will be available to customers who purchase IBM e-servers. By selecting
Tivoli to manage their e-infrastructures, IBM customers and partners can
enhance both policy-driven security and data integrity. The Tivoli services
available on IBM e-servers will include: Tivoli SecureWay, Tivoli Storage
Management, Tivoli Pervasive Management, and Service Delivery Solutions.
Security
Cisco Systems introduced a complete network-based IPsec VPN offering. Based
on the Cisco VPN 5000 concentrator and client, the VPN platform connects
remote users and branches to their corporate networks and business partners
across the Internet. The VPN 5000 enables service providers to offer their
customers a single product for both remote access and Intranet and Extranet
VPNs from a variety of client platforms.
Tivoli Systems launched the Tivoli SecureWay Public Key Infrastructure
(PKI), software for financial organizations looking to enhance e-business
transactions using digital certificates and digital signatures. In
addition, PKI meets the interoperable Identrus e-business standard.
Storage
Tivoli Systems launched the Tivoli SANergy 2.2. This updated version of
SANergy includes a suite of published programming applications for
third-party integration, expanded platform support, and additional
performance enhancements to enable Tivoli SANergy to deploy
mission-critical applications in a SAN environment.
Regulatory News
The FCC approved an order requiring telecom equipment in multi-tenant
environments (MTEs), owned by an incumbent phone or utility company, to be
shared with competitors. The FCC forbade telecom operators to enter into
exclusive contracts with landlords, although existing contracts remain
intact. Furthermore, the FCC extended nondiscriminatory access to telecom
and cable service providers, and extended a tenant's right to antennas that
transmit and receive wireless communications.
In response to a hearing held with AOL and Time Warner, competitors met
with the House Commerce Telecommunications Subcommittee. Disney and other
content providers pushed for binding conditions on the merger, including
open access for programming and interactive content. Also present were
instant messaging competitors, who expressed concerns over AOL's resistance
to making its instant messaging software interoperable with similar
programs. ISPs argued that AOL and Time Warner should be subject to the
same open access policies as phone companies. While the subcommittee has no
direct say in the merger approval process, the FCC and FTC are subjecting
the deal to close scrutiny.
The West Virginia Public Service Commission commenced open hearings on
access fees as part of Verizon Communications' Incentive Rate Plan, due to
expire at the end of the year. At the root of the hearing is AT&T's request
for the PSC to reduce charges the IXC pays to complete long distance calls
over the Verizon network. Verizon claims that the access charges are what
keep local calling prices affordable. AT&T contends that WV consumers could
save as much as $27 million on in-state long distance charges if the fees
are cut.
The FCC prohibited Disney from viewing confidential documents related to
the AOL/Time Warner merger. The prohibition comes after one of Disney's
associate attorneys sent an e-mail containing a description of the
documents to counsels not covered by confidentiality agreements.
Confidential information will not be disclosed to Disney until they provide
the FCC with measures to ensure that future breaches will not occur.
The FCC is allocating airwaves for commercial wireless use. The FCC is
making 50 MHz of spectrum available in the 3650 to 3700-MHz band for
commercial services, such as voice, data, and video. In addition, the FCC
is proposing licensing and service rules for this spectrum and may be
pairing it with 50MHz of spectrum on the 4940 to 4990-MHz band. Through
these actions, the Commission hopes to foster increased competition and
enable the introduction of services into new areas, especially in rural
regions.
The Wireless Telecommunications and International Bureaus of the FCC
approved the wireless joint venture between SBC and BellSouth. Approval was
based on the finding that the joint venture is not a threat to competition
in the wireless industry and that the joined assets of these two companies
allows them to compete on a national level. With the approval in hand, the
two companies are clear to transfer their US wireless licenses and their
international authorizations to the legal entity now termed Alloy LLC. The
new company, consists of most of the wireless operations from SBC and
BellSouth, including wireless Internet and interactive messaging services.
One year after SBC Communications and Ameritech merged and pledged to
devote greater resources to service quality, state and federal regulators
are investigating why the company has escalating installation delays and
longer repair times. Several state agencies have already levied fines
against Ameritech and parent-company SBC; now federal regulators want to
know how the company is going to reverse the situation. FCC Quality of
Service Rules establish 36 hours after the outage has been reported as a
maximum wait for repairs. In August 2000, Ameritech's average repair time
was 160 hours. The FCC will be working with state commissioners in
Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin to monitor Ameritech's QoS
in the coming months. Last month Ameritech shifted 966 technicians from
construction to installation and repair work in its region in an attempt to
correct most service problems within 24 hours. Despite the local service
failures in Ameritech's region, SBC is currently pressing to enter the long
distance market in Michigan.
Swiss telecoms regulator ComCom ordered Swisscom to cut the price it
charges rival operators to lease its lines by up to 63 percent. The ruling
was made after Commcare, a small Zurich-based telecoms provider, filed a
complaint in 1998. Swisscom is considering appealing to the Federal
Tribunal against the ruling.
Standards and Protocols
Compaq and Microsoft reported the development of the MAPI Messaging
Benchmark 2 (MMB2). This benchmark serves as a server platform standard for
the Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server. The standard requires a server to
handle a load similar to that of heavy corporate mail.
Financial News
Deutsche Telekom acquired 50 percent minus one share of Dutch cellphone
operator Ben. DT bought the stake through its T-Mobile unit, due to be
floated next year after the completion of its VoiceStream Wireless
acquisition, valued at $37 billion. DT also expanded its cell-phone
business by buying British operator One2One.
France Telecom and Italian ally Enel are studying different ways to buy
Italy's Infostrada from Vodafone, but are 2.0 billion euros apart on the
price. It is rumored that Enel is willing to pay up to 11 billion euros,
but that FT has put the bar at nine billion euros.
Hughes Electronics announced that its revenues for the third quarter 2000
increased 3.7 percent to $1.68 billion from $1.62 billion for the previous
year's quarter. The company's loss was $93.8 million, compared to a loss of
$34.9 million in the same quarter in the previous year. Cash flow from
operations dropped nearly 47 percent from $202 million to $107.9 million.
The company's Direct-to-Home services yielded revenues of $1.29 billion,
compared to $1.14 billion. Satellite services reported revenues of $199.3
million, compared to $210.7 million, and Hughes Network Systems reported
$284.0 million, compared to $426.2 million.
In the third quarter 2000, Motorola's earnings rose 66 percent to $598
million, or $0.26 per share, compared to $361 million, or $0.16 per share.
Sales rose from $8.1 billion from the same quarter in 1999 to $9.5 billion.
Concerns over the company's cell-phone and semiconductors were allayed as
results from both sectors met expectations.
StarBand Communications, a joint venture between Gilat Satellite Networks,
EchoStar Communications, and Microsoft, filed to go public. StarBand, a
provider of high-speed Internet access via satellite, hopes to raise $287.5
million in the IPO. The company will use the net proceeds to fund continued
growth, expansion of its subscriber base, and corporate purposes.
Telstra cut back on its proposed $3-billion investment in Pacific Century
Cyberworks by up to $500 million. Telstra will pay up to $1.3 billion to
get 50 percent of the mobile joint venture. It had originally agreed to pay
$1.5 billion in cash for 40 percent.
WorldCom CEO Bernie Ebbers filed an application with the SEC to sell 11
percent of the 27 million WorldCom shares he owns, or about three million
shares. Based on WorldCom's recent stock prices, the value of the shares is
about $77.8 million.
Legal News
Ministers of the European Union backed landmark rules to deregulate the
"last mile" of wire connecting homes and offices to the Internet by January
1. Large telecom companies such as France Telecom and British Telecom still
control as much as 98 percent of local phone networks.
NextWave Personal Communications lost its argument before the Supreme Court
that it should be allowed to keep its licenses at a lower cost than the
$4.7 billion it originally promised to pay. NextWave lost the licenses it
won in an FCC auction after failing to make its payments. Those 64 licenses
are scheduled to be re-auctioned by the FCC, which was sued by NextWave,
stating that the licenses had depreciated in value by the time the
government was ready to issue them.
Novell received $2 million in its case against Myung Je, a corporation
based in Seoul, Korea. A US District Court for the District of Utah found
that Myung Je breached its OEM agreement with Novell, using the company's
trademarks in an un authorized fashion, thereby infringing upon Novell's
trademarks.
Eager to settle the problems inherited through the acquisition of US WEST,
Qwest Communications agreed to settle a $43.5 million lawsuit filed by
Colorado consumers. Some 244,000 people filed the suit against US WEST
about four years ago for making consumers wait too long for phone services.
Individual payments range from $3.79 to $1900. Although similar lawsuits
have been filed in Arizona and New Mexico, the settlement covers only
Colorado customers . Earlier this year, Qwest shelled out $12.7 million in
fines levied against US WEST by the Colorado Public Utilities Commission
for poor service.
Seagate Technology reported that VERITAS Software and a group of private
investors led by Silver Lake Partners entered into an agreement to settle
the litigation involving Seagate stockholders over a proposed acquisition
of Seagate. The investor group settled by paying $50 million for Seagate's
operating assets, which will be used to cover a potential tax liability of
anywhere from $150 to $300 million.
Personnel and Organizational Changes
@Link Networks appointed Gary Brandt, former WorldCom VP of Investor
Relations, to the position of CFO. Brandt will be responsible for @Link's
financial operations, including investor relations, accounting, financial
reporting, billing, tax financial planning and analysis, treasury, and
internal audit.
Effective after the proposed merger closes, Joseph Ripp will become the new
CFO of AOL. Previously CFO of Time Warner, Ripp will replace AOL CFO J.
Michael Kelly, who will be promoted to CFO of the combined company under
its new organizational structure.
BellSouth named Gary D. Forsee vice chairman of the company and president
of BellSouth International. Charles C. Miller was named executive vice
president and chief staff officer of BellSouth.
British Telecom's CFO, Robert Brace, will resign after 11 years with the
company. Philip Hampton, the current CFO of the BG group, will replace
Brace.
The unexpected departures of three top executives at Deutshce Telekom's
T-Online unnerved DT management. CEO Wolfgang Keuntje, who built the
company from scratch through mergers and acquisitions, resigned in late
August. Keuntje was replaced by Detlev Buchal. In late September, CFO
Christian Heoning walked out the door. The week before it was Ralf Eck, who
oversaw product development and marketing.
After just seven months on the job, Leo Hindery resigned as CEO of Global
Crossing. The company named vice chairman Thomas Casey as Hindery's
successor. Hindery will continue as chairman and CEO of the company's
Web-hosting unit GlobalCenter until next year when Exodus Communications
acquires the unit.
Lucent appointed Jason Chi as chairman and Chi Ho Lin as COO of Lucent
China, based in Beijing. Mr. Chi will be responsible for all business
development activities in the China region. Mr. Lin, directly supported by
Jason Chi, will be in charge of the day-to-day operations for Lucent China.
One day after the company lowered its earnings estimates for fiscal 2000,
Motorola's executive vice president in charge of the company's
communications division, Merle Gilmore, resigned, effective immediately.
Motorola president and COO, Robert L. Growney, will fill the position until
a permanent successor is named. Gilmore was a 30-year Motorola veteran and
was viewed as the next logical COO.
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