Today's Top Stories AT&T (NYSE: T) is using this week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to announce that it will begin delivering its Digital Life home security and automation services to homeowners in eight markets beginning in March. Later this year, AT&T said, it will bring the service to 50 U.S. states. With Digital Life, customers can control various functions including remotely turning on and off lights and adjusting thermostats from a mobile device. They will also be able to customize their own security and automation package based on their individual needs, and will have the ability to manage and control their services by setting up programs and alerts. Although consumers will be able to access various configurations and features, a key point of the service is ease of use. Since it's all wirelessly enabled in the home, there's no need to install new wiring. Last summer, the telco began offering Digital Life in a number of trial markets, including in Atlanta and Dallas, after releasing details about the service in May. While AT&T will target its existing wireless and wireline customers, the service is available to any U.S. homeowner regardless of who their wireless carrier or broadband provider is. Arguably, the home automation market is still in its nascent stage, with only 1.8 million home automation systems shipped in 2011 globally. However, ABI Research forecast that that number will increase to over 12 million shipments by 2016. Besides AT&T (NYSE: T) other providers like Frontier and Time Warner Cable to launch home automation and security services. What's driving these service providers to deliver new home automation services is additional service revenues as they see declines in traditional voice services. AT&T can target both segments, as it already has a strong large wireless and wireline customer base. Wireline customers that have existing U-verse IPTV are an easy target for this service as they likely have a home networking gateway with WiFi capabilities that can connect various devices like cameras and security systems. AT&T could target its U-verse customer base with offerings that bundle in the Digital Life service with their wireline voice, data and video products. In Q3 2012, the service provider reported that it added almost 200,000 new U-verse TV subscribers and 613,000 new broadband Internet subscribers. For more:
- see the release Related articles:
AT&T readies new home security, automation service offering
ABI: Service providers will drive 12M home automation shipments by 2016
Verizon takes covers off its home monitoring service
AT&T readies new home security, automation service offering
Frontier, Time Warner Cable add home security to their broadband bundles Read more about: AT&T
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Seaborn Networks, a service provider building the Seabras-1 submarine cable network that will connect the United States with Brazil, on Monday said its network partner Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) mobilized vessels to conduct marine surveys. Conducting these surveys is the next major step Alcatel-Lucent Submarine must take to build out the Seabras-1 network. Upon completion, the 32 Tbps-capable system will provide a submarine cable connection from New York to Sao Paulo with an additional branch landing in Fortaleza. Already, the Seabras-1 system has attracted both Sidera Networks and Tata Communications. Sidera will purchase capacity on the Seabras-1 system to extend its low latency fiber network services to Sao Paulo, Latin America's largest financial services center. Last October, Sidera, which is now in the process of merging with Lightower Fiber Networks, launched a major network initiative in Virginia and further into southern states including North Carolina.
While the Seabras-1 network won't be officially completed until next year, the company's timing could not be any better. According to the Brazilian Electrical and Electronics Industry Association (ABINEE), Brazil's telecom market is set to grow an additional 7 percent this year.
For more:
- see the release Related articles:
Seaborn taps Alcatel-Lucent to build its U.S.-to-Brazil cable network
Seaborn Networks to provide New York City to Sao Paulo submarine route
Brazil's Telebrás to build U.S.-to-Fortaleza submarine cable
Submarine cable operators protest FCC's USF contribution proposal
Seaborn Networks completes second round of funding Read more about: Submarine Cable, Alcatel-Lucent
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BTI Systems, an Ontario-based optical company with offices in Littleton, Mass., on Monday raised $8.5 million in new funding from investor Bain Capital Ventures. Sally Bament, SVP of global marketing at BTI, told the Boston Business Journal that the latest round of funding included all of the company's previous investors, including Kodiak Venture Partners, GrowthWorks and Fujitsu. This follows a previous round where the optical vendor raised $23 million, which was also led by Bain Capital. As stated in an SEC filing this round, BTI plans to secure another $3.5 million. The vendor said that the new funding will be used to fund an upcoming cloud and data center initiative. However, it would not provide any details beyond saying it would make an announcement in the "next several weeks." BTI is an up-and-coming vendor in the growing Packet Optical Transport Systems (P-OTS) segment of the optical networking industry, winning a number of contracts with Tier 2 telcos and CLECs, including Consolidated Communications (Nasdaq: CNSL), Frontier Communications (Nasdaq: FTR), and CBeyond (Nasdaq: CBEY). This cloud initiative will likely resonate well with CBeyond. In October, the CLEC deployed BTI's P-OTS platform as the foundation for its fiber-based cloud service initiative. While BTI does not have the market share of larger players such as Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) and Ciena (Nasdaq: CIEN), the P-OTS market is a growth market that's showing opportunity for vendors.
Infonetics forecasts that service providers overall will spend a cumulative $6.6 billion on second-generation P-OTS platforms that incorporate both Ethernet and OTN/SDH switching between 2012 and 2016. For more:
- Boston Business Journal has this article In Detail: Following the Packet Optical Transport Systems (P-OTS) evolution Related articles:
Cbeyond employs BTI's packet optical gear for cloud service venture
Frontier improves its local video delivery strategy with BTI
Consolidated Communications taps BTI to expand Illinois bandwidth needs
Zayo Enterprise Networks puts fiber in Denver businesses' diet Read more about: packet optical transport system
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Verizon (NYSE: VZ) on Monday reaffirmed plans to accelerate the migration of customers on its copper facilities to fiber in 2013.  | | McAdam (Image source: Verizon) | Lowell McAdam, Verizon's CEO and chairman, said during the Citi Global Internet, Media & Communications Conference in Las Vegas they will make conversions in areas that have a high level maintenance issues. "So where we have focused first, just to prove in the concepts and get the process right, is where we have high maintenance areas and we have FiOS and copper going down the street," he said. Although he would not reveal an exact timeline or how many customers it would migrate to fiber this year, McAdam did say that in addition to targeting individual "chronic copper" customers--or those that have more than two truck rolls to service the copper line during a six-month period--Verizon plans "to target broader areas." McAdam added that what this means is "even though an individual customer may not have a maintenance problem, if that area has a maintenance problem we will cut them over." One event that drove Verizon to accelerate its copper-to-fiber migration program in 2012 was Hurricane Sandy. With much of its copper facilities damaged beyond repair in both New York City's Broad Street area and areas of New Jersey such as the Barrier Islands, the service provider decided the best route was just to replace it with fiber. "When we had the impact of Sandy our mantra was you will not fix copper," McAdam said. "So if copper got into any kind of a damaged situation and FiOS was in the vicinity, or we could run FiOS down an adjacent street and get into there, we would cut the copper out of service." Overall, Verizon converted about 200,000 customers to fiber in 2012, but that number might be a bit higher due to the impact of Hurricane Sandy. Looking forward, the telco will expand the program to more areas this year. "We don't have all that documented at this point because there is obviously still a lot of rebuilding going on in New Jersey and parts of New York, but we will kick that up substantially in 2013," McAdam said. McAdam reiterated that the conversion to the FTTP-based FiOS service has two advantages: immediate service upsell opportunities, and lower maintenance costs.
FiOS has become a growing cash cow in the telco's wireline business. In Q3 2012, the telco added 136,000 FiOS Internet connections for a year-over-year increase of 14.4 percent, while FiOS video subscribers rose 15 percent by 119,000. "Well, when a customer goes, even to FiOS digital voice, they very quickly see the difference on copper and we have seen the ability to sell up," he said. "Then on the maintenance side a huge difference for us. We can lower our cost structure dramatically by getting more onto the FiOS platform and get off the old copper." Despite the advantages of lower maintenance costs and potential upsell opportunities, not everyone is excited about the copper to fiber transition. A group of six New York City landlords where copper is damaged won't let Verizon install fiber in their buildings. These landlords claim that some tenants and residents who reside in the buildings want to keep their copper-based DSL and PSTN services. It's possible that that the protests are coming from older residents whose main concern is having nothing more than a traditional phone line. The telco is not taking the protests lying down. Verizon has filed a complaint with the New York Public Service Commission in which it argues that the landlords are preventing "restoring telephone service to the tenants of those buildings." As Verizon looks to convert copper to fiber in other cities outside of New York City, it will likely face other battles from CLECs that depend on last mile facilities from the large incumbent operators to deliver Ethernet over Copper (EoC) services to their business customers. For more:
- hear the webcast (reg req.)
- see Verizon's complaint (.pdf) Year in Review 2012: Verizon accelerates copper-to-fiber transition Editor's Corner: New York City needs to support Verizon's fiber switchover Related articles:
Verizon takes advantage of Superstorm Sandy to accelerate copper-to-fiber migration
Verizon's Q3 wireline earnings get a boost from consumer FiOS services
Verizon's Shammo: We'll continue to migrate problem copper customers to FiOS Read more about: Lowell Mcadam, investor conference
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SK Telecom, Korea's largest wireless operator, on Monday began incorporating Nokia Siemens Networks' 100G technology into its existing 40G network. By making this move it will be able to expand its transmission capacity to support the growing use of smartphones. When this deployment is complete, SK will be able to simultaneously transmit up to 80 wavelengths, each carrying 100G on a single optical fiber, providing a total of 8 Tbps per fiber. One of the challenges that providers like SK Telecom face is that while they see the need to expand their networks to 100G, they need to do it without having to spend capital to install new fiber. Tapani Sairanen, head of Asia and Middle East cluster, customer sales support, optical networks, Nokia Siemens Networks, said that NSN can "help SK Telecom transition to a 100G network cost efficiently, as our technology eliminates the need for costly installation of more fiber." In this expansion project, SK is leveraging NSN's hiT 7300 DWDM platform. Since the platform uses coherent transmission based on CP-QPSK (coherent polarization multiplexed quadrature phase shift keying) modulation, the vendor said it can use the service provider's embedded network infrastructure. Besides network equipment, NSN is providing its network management system in addition to network planning, optimization and implementation, and hardware and software maintenance care services. This latest win comes after Marlin Equity Partners announced an agreement to purchase NSN's optical business unit in early December. NSN has traditionally trailed other optical vendors, including Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU), Ciena (Nasdaq: CIEN), and Infinera, which have racked up a number of other high profile 100G wins. However, the win with SK in addition to XO Communications and TeliaSonera show they are gaining some momentum in the rapidly consolidating optical networking market segment. For more:
- see the release Related articles:
Nokia Siemens Networks sells optical business to Marlin Equity Partners
ADTRAN buys NSN's wireline broadband unit
TeliaSonera International Carrier selects Nokia Siemens Networks for overlay 100G network
XO Communications goes live with nationwide 100G network Read more about: Fiber Optical, 100G
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Chronicling this year's Consumer Electronics Show
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