Carrier Channel: News Briefs June 2002

Posted: 06/2002

News
Briefs

Telia subsidiary
Telia International Carrier is targeting upstart ISPs and ITSPs with its new Telia IP Connect, an enhancement of the company’s IP Transit service that makes it possible for companies to operate like large and well-established companies through complete outsourcing of IP address management and necessary administration, eliminating the need for AS-numbers. Based on TeliaNet, Telia’s fully-controlled IP network, IP Connect offers bandwidth of 512kbps to 10mbps and is available in Asia, Europe and the United States. Value-added services for IP Connect, include Managed IP Access and Registry in a Box, which is seven different services wherein Telia handles Primary and Secondary DNS (Domain Name System) services.

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Arbinet-thexchange reports it has been shielding its 160 members behind a “bad credit firewall” called the CreditWatch management system, an integrated credit-risk management and billing system that limits members’ bad debt exposure. The four key components of the program are netting of purchase and sales balances in real-time, clearing member trading balances twice-a-month, underwriting balances through GE Capital Commercial Services or securing them by deposit, automatically warning and shutting down a member’s ability to buy as it approaches and then reaches its secured credit limit.

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Progress Telecom now provides E1 transport between major cable landings and strategic PoPs in Miami, facilitating inbound traffic from international gateways. The new metro transport product brings cost benefits to international customers because it eliminates the need for conversion to U.S. protocols. It will enable Progress Telecom customers to terminate traffic at major cable landings and distribute it throughout South Florida and the United States. The company says traffic from Latin America is projected to grow by 93 percent during the next four years.

* Year-old European satellite exchange SatCap BV has launched a consulting division led by former senior executives from Intelsat, Eutelsat, GE Americom, SES Astra, Globecast, Telenor and GTE Spacenet. The team — Joe Barna, Marcus Bicknell, Julian Costley, Michael Genner, Phil Haines and Dagobert Weeda — will provide advice on satellite-related fields such as studio facilities, IP connectivity, play-out facilities, TV production, VoIP and DVB solutions.

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Dominion Telecom Inc. announced April 10 that it has closed on the purchase of the upstate New York long-haul and metro-fiber network facilities of Telergy Inc., a Syracuse, N.Y., telecommunications provider in liquidation. The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of New York at Utica accepted Dominion Telecom’s $7.4 million bid March 25. During the past two years, Dominion Telecom has purchased long-haul fiber between Buffalo, Syracuse, Albany and New York City, as well as metro-ring facilities in upstate New York from Telergy.

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IP Communications completed its third round of financing, securing up to an additional $30 million in private equity from its current investors, including DLJ Global Communications Partners, GE Equity, Brookwood Financial Partners as well as several other private investors. The company simultaneously announced it had negotiated the restructuring of its debt financing with Lucent Technologies, which will take a minority equity stake in the company. Since its last round of financing in late 2000, IP Communications has built a data network covering almost 90 percent of business access lines and providing ATM switching capabilities in 23 business metro areas in the Southwest.