Today's Top Stories Frontier Communications (Nasdaq: FTR) was asked by the National Advertising Division (NAD) on Monday to stop making specific claims in advertisements about the speeds of its DSL service. What prompted the NAD to make this recommendation to the ILEC was a challenge made by one of its cable rivals, Cequel I Communications III, LLC, which does business as Suddenlink Communications. Suddenlink said that Frontier's claims that the speeds of its DSL service were faster than Suddenlink's DOCSIS 3-based service were false. One of the specific issues that Suddenlink cited about Frontier's service advertisements was that it offered a "dedicated" Internet line that "never lets you down," while the cable's customers could see slower speeds because they have to "share" a link with "the whole neighborhood." In its advertiser's statement, Frontier has requested the National Advertising Review Board (NARB) review the NAD's recommendation that Frontier discontinue specific dedicated connection claims, cable service neighborhood sharing claims, and security and privacy claims. Arguments between telcos and cable operator's broadband speeds have continued to emerge in recent years. Besides the fight between Suddenlink and Frontier, Verizon faced a similar issue with Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA) over claims that the cable operator's DOCSIS services were significantly slower than the telco's FTTH-based FiOS service. For more:
- see the release
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Frontier's Q2 revenue declines to $1.26B
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Frontier launches local campaign to lure former SureWest business customers Read more about: Frontier Communications
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Ghana's National Information Technology Agency (NITA) tapped Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) to help it extend a number of online services to government agencies in remote parts of the country. Delivered through the e-Ghana project, the vendor has been tasked with designing and implementing a 600km fiber-based backbone network which will provide high-speed data links between central government functions and remote and rural locations. Working in conjunction with local IT hardware and service provider IPMC, Alcatel-Lucent will build a large-scale data center, server and storage infrastructure from HP (NYSE: HPQ), which will host all of the e-government project information. The vendor will also host a Genesys helpdesk solution, a performance rating platform and e-learning systems from Saba. Besides network infrastructure and services, Alcatel-Lucent will train NITA's employees to ensure what it says will be a "seamless transfer of knowledge so that the NITA teams can take over the full network operation responsibility by the end of the three-year period." Leveraging Alcatel-Lucent's 1830 Photonic Service Switch (PSS), which includes its 100G-capable optical coherent technology, the network will link Ghana's north and south as well as international submarine gateways via its eastern corridor. For more:
- see the release Related articles:
Alcatel-Lucent cuts 5K jobs amid Q2 2012 loss
Earnings preview: Verizon seen doing well; ALU to miss guidance
Switching and routing market to grow 4.4% in 2012, breaking stagnant Q1
BT Ireland chooses Alcatel-Lucent for its IP/VPN Ethernet initiative Read more about: Government Services, Alcatel-Lucent
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Global Capacity, a virtual network operator owned by investment company Pivotal Group, on Monday appointed COO Jack Lodge to President, replacing co-founder and CEO Patrick Shutt, who will become vice chairman of the company's board.  | | Lodge (Image source: Global Capacity) | While Shutt will continue to guide the strategic direction of Global Capacity, his role as Vice Chairman will allow him to pursue entrepreneurial ventures in the cloud services market. "As we enter into the next iteration of the company, Patrick has decided to step back from a day-to-day operating role and step into a Vice Chairman role as he pursues other ventures, particularly in the cloud space, which is really a passion of his," said Jack Lodge, CEO of Global Capacity, in an interview with FierceTelecom. "The core business and strategy is remaining the same and Patrick as a board member will actually probably play an active role in the business than typically board members do given how close he is to the business and given his relationships in the market." Since founding Global Capacity 12 years ago, Shutt helped the service provider achieve 18 consecutive months of positive EBITDA. In his new role as president, Lodge will now oversee all elements of the company's strategy and execute the Global Capacity business. Lodge came to Global Capacity when it purchased CentrePath in 2006, and has served as COO since 2008. One of Lodge's key accomplishments during his four-year tenure at Global Capacity has been building out the One Marketplace Access Exchange as a platform that automates pricing, quoting and ordering of various access network solutions for enterprises and other service providers that are trying to extend into other regions outside their traditional footprints to serve their multisite customers.
"Probably 18 months ago we really settled into a strategy of leveraging our automation in the marketplace to create efficiency and really swapping that automation for the ability to compete for transactional circuit revenue as well as what we call transformational deals to take over outsource existing spend," Lodge said. "That's a go-to-market strategy that's created a lot of traction in our pipeline, and we had our second consecutive quarter of very robust sales activity." Lodge added that going forward that his goal for Global Capacity is to continue expand its partnership base with other carriers and revenues based on its existing strategy. For more:
- see the release Related articles:
Week in research: Competition could dampen business services; Alcatel-Lucent tops optical vendors
Sidera to provide low latency services to DuPont Fabros Technology's data center Read more about: Global Capacity
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Level 3 Communications (NYSE: LVLT) on Monday introduced a global security solutions suite that it says will provide multi-layered protection as customers grow their businesses. As an integrated solution, the service provider is bundling the new security services with its other network services like Ethernet and professional services to provide a solution that best fits a particular business' needs. Anthony Christie, Level 3's chief marketing officer, said in a press release announcing the new product that Level 3 is taking an "Earth to Cloud" approach to security that "combines a number of layers of increasingly sophisticated protection from the ground up, beginning with the way our network was designed and constructed in the ground, with diverse routes and other structural protection." This new suite of security services includes several major elements: Level 3 Secure Access Services, Managed Security Services, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) mitigation and Security Consulting Services; vulnerability scanning combined with DDoS blocking and other traditional elements like antivirus, anti-spam and intrusion detection capabilities; and the ability for a customer to get network access and protection from one service provider. In the event that a security issue does arise, Level 3 provides 24x7x365 access to security experts that business customers can consult from four redundant security operation centers (SOCs). The timing for this service could not be better. A new Frost & Sullivan report forecast that the global market for managed security solutions will increase from $7.9 billion in 2012 to $15.6 billion in 2016. Broadening its security capabilities comes at a time when the newly combined Level 3/Global Crossing is enhancing its focus on key vertical market segments like health care and the financial industry. This move was clearly reflected in Level 3's Q2 earnings where strong enterprise sales helped its Core Network Services grow 0.7 percent sequentially to $1.39 billion. For more:
- see the release Special report: Wireline in the second quarter of 2012 Related articles:
Level 3's forecast reaffirmation buoys shares 9%
Submarine cable operators protest FCC's USF contribution proposal
Level 3 takes on Latin America's data center market
Level 3, Verizon focus on serving France-based MNCs Read more about: Level 3 Communications
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Calix (NYSE: CALX) on Monday appointed Kevin DeNuccio as the latest member of its Board of Directors.  | | DeNuccio (Image source: MetaSwitch) | DeNuccio is a 25-year telecom veteran who most recently served as the CEO of MetaSwitch where he still holds a director position on the softswitch vendor's board. During his two-year stint at MetaSwitch from February 2010 to June 2012, DeNuccio not only led the vendor's West Coast expansion, but also oversaw two acquisitions: AppTrigger, a Texas-based service broker vendor and Norway-based instant messaging and presence systems provider Colibria. He is probably best known as the CEO of IP edge router vendor Redback where he helped establish it as a major player in the segment. Redback was acquired by Ericsson (Nasdaq: ERIC) in 2007 for $2.1 billion.
In addition, he held various management positions at other telecom vendors and service providers including Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) and Bell Atlantic, now Verizon (NYSE: VZ). DeNuccio grew Cisco's service provider division from a 500-employee organization into a 4000-employee operation generating $4 billion. Besides Calix and Metaswitch, DeNuccio also currently serves on the boards of SanDisk and Northeastern University. DeNuccio's appointment to Calix's board comes at a time when the vendor is looking to expand outside of its traditional U.S. ILEC customer base and into the international telecom market that's been traditionally dominated by the likes of Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU), Ericsson, Huawei and ZTE (Shenzhen: 000063.SZ). Calix bolstered its presence in the international last mile market in August when it purchased Ericsson's GPON assets and signed a reseller agreement with the Swedish vendor. For more:
- see the release FierceTelecom Leaders: Kevin DeNuccio, President and CEO of MetaSwitch Related articles:
John Lazar takes back his CEO post at Metaswitch
Metaswitch's DeNuccio: Rumors of voice industry's death greatly exaggerated
Former Redback exec DeNuccio takes reins at Metaswitch Read more about: MetaSwitch
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